Colleges Ignore the Most Basic of Skills -- Writing

George Leef

In this week's Pope Center Clarion Call, Professor Murray Sperber points out that most college courses do little or nothing to help students become good (or even moderately competent) at that most basic of skills -- writing. Even though few students have been taught good writing skills in their K-12 years and badly need careful, line by line editing by their professors, they rarely get it. Such editing is too much thankless work for more faculty members and no one compels them to do it.

Ideally, we would go back to seriously teaching children how to write in grade school and continuously polishing their ability through high school. It's absurd that college professors should need to teach students the elements of grammar, punctuation, and so on. But since K-12 can't be magically transformed, colleges need to do as much as they can to ensure that their graduates don't go out into the labor force with writing skills that are weaker than a well-schooled sixth grader's. Simply putting students through a single freshman composition course isn't nearly enough.

This is an opportunity for some colleges to separate themselves from the pack. Those that make solid writing instruction part of the curriculum will get a comparative advantage.  

  • Share

Most Commented

January 9, 2023

1.

NAS Celebrates the Nomination of Reform-Minded Trustees to the New College of Florida Board

The National Association of Scholars is delighted with Governor Ron DeSantis’ nomination of six education reformers to the Board of Trustees of the New College of Florida....

December 7, 2022

2.

New Study Tracks Rise of DEI in STEM Departments, Associations, Grants, and Literature

A new study published today by the National Association of Scholars, Ideological Intensification, offers an in-depth quantitative analysis of just how far DEI has advanced into STEM fields....

January 5, 2023

3.

NAS Condemns the Attacks against Jordan Peterson

The National Association of Scholars condemns the unrelenting illiberal attacks being levied against Dr. Peterson and against anyone who dares push back against the enemies of intellectual f......

Most Read

May 15, 2015

1.

Where Did We Get the Idea That Only White People Can Be Racist?

A look at the double standard that has arisen regarding racism, illustrated recently by the reaction to a black professor's biased comments on Twitter....

October 12, 2010

2.

Ask a Scholar: What is the True Definition of Latino?

What does it mean to be Latino? Are only Latin American people Latino, or does the term apply to anyone whose language derived from Latin?...

March 22, 2023

3.

How Many Confucius Institutes Are in the United States?

UPDATED: We're keeping track of all Confucius Institutes in the United States, including those that remain open, those that closed, and those that have announced their closing....