Organization umm...;What should colleges teach?

College writing is something that is so unique and diverse, but the question is what should college English professors teach? Stanley Fish says that the sentence is the main aspect that should be taught.  [Stanley Fish Blog]He stresses every aspect of a sentence in his classes. Starting with simple ones then to very long hard sentences. He makes his student’s dissect every little thing in a sentence. The reason for doing this is because Stanley Fish believes that “A sentence is a structure of logical relationships; everything else flows.”

In regards to my personal opinion I think sentences are something that is really important. However, I do not believe that it is something that needs to be taught in a college classroom. I believe that sentences and sentence structure is something that needs to be taught at the lower levels of education. However, in some cases sentence structure may be appropriate.  For example, in my own journey though middle school I was placed in a low level reading and writing class by mistake. I was then taught the same stuff I already knew.

In college I feel that the main aspect that should be taught in the writing process is organization. The organization process is sometimes overlooked. It’s something that seems so simple and short. Although its something that can be time consuming and hard. That’s something that I have observed over and over in a project I had to do in my freshmen English class.

In this project I had to go to a tutoring session and the Ohio State Newark writers studio.  [Writer Studio] My goal was to observe every little aspect that I could to accomplish my overall goal. The goal was to answer a question “What is college level writing.” After several weeks of going to these sessions the biggest thing that was mentioned over and over again was organization.

The fist thing that should be taught is the outline. The outline is often a skipped process in organization. If the outline is not skipped, it’s often not done seriously. It’s important to do the outline so you have an idea of what you’re going to write. A lot of times people sit down and start writing with no outline. This often causes you to get stumped and stressed out.

I witnessed the organization issue in my first observation. Samantha, the student, was having a hard time starting her paper. Beth the tutor asked her if she had made an outline yet. Samantha didn’t do one yet. Samantha then did it and was telling Beth how much it helped her out. 

The second thing that needs to be taught is time management. When you do your outline you need to also organize your time too.  This will allow you to have the proper time for each step in the writing process. A lot of times people do not allow proper time to do assignments and wait until the last minute. When doing this you will not see the best results.

 

The third major part of organization is the reverse outline. A reverse outline is important to use after you have written your first draft. [Reverse Outline]It will help you go through your paper and different paragraphs to make sure that everything makes sense and flows.  Often time’s students find themselves rambling and not making logical sense in their paragraphs. Using this will help students edit and perfect the paper. The reverse outline is something that is rarely used, but makes a significant difference in papers.                                                                                                                             

College level writing can be described as a number of different things.  Stanley Fish believes that the most important thing in college level writing is sentences.  On the other hand, I believe that organization is the most important thing in college level writing.  I have seen the struggles that organization causes in college students. There are many different types of organization that needs to be taught including creating an outline, time management, and a reverse outline.