college writing isnt what it used to be:
My daughter took a college writing course at USM during her Junior year in Highschool. The readings were all fraught with feminist anger and victim ideology, written in the most turgid style. I worked with my daughter to decipher the text of the handouts, and to find some connections with the questions. It took me a while to realize that the instructor’s questions were a misreading of the texts she assigned. No practice in college writing actually happened in the course. It was all victimhood and hate propaganda. Instead I taught her how to string the correct words together to ensure she was hitting all the victimhood and rage necessities for the instructors emotional well-being. It became a homeschool education in how to recognize and respond to this political correctness. She was never in jeopardy of receive less than an A anyhow. In today’s vernacular, her brown skin privileged her, although I didn’t tell her that.
My daughter was chased by the English department that was losing students during this time . She was highly praised for her writing and it was a heady experience to have these profs taking her out and telling her of the promise she had as an English feminist write. I homeschooled her, and knew her talents and her significant limitations as a writer. Although her head was momentarily turned, she eventually, with discussion came to see that the profs in English wanted the black student for numbers and for the “diversity” she provided for she was the right color. Fools.
I spoke to a friend who ran a different but related humanities department about the content and the lack of teaching in the courses and she admitted that college writing was seen as an introduction to “different ideas” for the students. IOW propaganda. The friend was quite taken aback that I would find it wrong to sell a class on College Writing which actually a class on Victim Studies.
Well yes, the left has co-opted the English department. I’m beginning to think what is required is a conversion to rationality so that writing well makes sense again.