There is an enormous difference between writing papers for a college professor than a high school teacher. Students are taught to write accordingly to their grade level and transitioning between high school and scholarly work may become complex. As interesting and accurate as this dynamic is, why aren’t children (eleventh and twelve graders) being taught the scholarly way to construct a paper?
“The five-paragraph theme, aren't sophisticated or flexible enough to provide a sound structure for a college paper,” Karen Gocsik. Preparing students to write college papers should exist within the high school setting as a standard. Teaching this transition during the first two academic years is time consuming and costly. The sole purpose of getting an education is to help prepare for future endeavors.
Joseph M. Williams and Lawrence McEnerney from the University of Chicago’s writing program designed a required curriculum specifically targeting freshmen and sophomores. The universities around the country should be in accordance with college bound students from their junior year of high school to help strengthen future writers. Delaying students’ progress, however, is not solving this dilemma; instead it prolongs their academic success and creates greater debt for the young scholars.
An advantage to this overwhelming realization is that scholarly writers are teaching the way in which a paper should be written. There are many who have not fully grasp the notion of a scholarly written paper and the planning that is involved. Karen Gocsik eloquently, examines the possibly questions one should pose when considering writing a paper. She also suggest the writer be fully aware the audience, which is the professor reading it. Once that is in place, and an argument is established, begin formulating and analyzing the content and put it into words.
Works Cited
Gocsik, K. (2004, july 12). Writing an academic paper. Retrieved july 12, 2005, from dartmouth.edu: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/ac_paper/what.shtml
McEnerney, j. M. (2008, unknown unknown). The University of Chicago. Retrieved from writing program: http://writing-program.uchicago.edu/resources/collegewriting/
@ Brian
ReplyDeleteFunny we should choose the same article to review for our first entry for this class! For me, this article came at the right time.
I liked your citation from Williams and McEnerney. It is advantageous for the University of Chicago to design such a program for their students, especially if those skills need to be sharpened.
Nice summary of the article Brian. I completely agree with the author’s opinion in that academic writing should be a standard for high school students in the upper grades. I remember feeling lost in my first year in college for that very reason.
ReplyDelete:-) I vaguely remember writing research papers in high school, I don't remember there being a tremendous jump from high school to university. I do remember having a professor who decided against us writing papers because it was unlikely that we were going to really answer the "universal questions" that freshmen tended to write about. Instead, we selected a topic from a list of questions and spent the semester reseaching the question and writing a journal about our research. At the end of the journal we were to write the sentence, "if I were to write a paper about [subject] I would begin with..."
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