The three-year-old Berkeley program has improved students' abilities to think and put down thoughts in an orderly fashion, Schmida said. Out of her sight and hearing, students taking the five-unit course readily agreed. "Instead of writing essay fluff, I've learned to be more insightful," said a future architect. "It helped me get my points across."
Others sounded equally exuberant. "I needed confidence, and now it's easier for me to focus on a thesis," said a physics major who speaks Cantonese at home with her family. "One-on-one helps because the teacher asks what I mean, and that makes me think more about it," said an African-American woman planning to major in chemical engineering.
Berkeley's writing program has drawn national attention because it seems to work. Failure rates have dropped from more than ten percent to four percent since the new system went into effect. "Students begin to think and challenge their own beliefs," Schmida said. The third-year instructor, a doctoral candidate in language and literacy, served in the Peace Corps in Guinea Bissau, where, in order to communicate, the natives needed Creole in addition to their tribal tongues, plus written Portuguese. Many of her students, mostly in the sciences, are convinced they do not need English when they arrive, but change their minds as the course moves along. "I pick authors that speak to them," said Schmida.
One day's two-hour class was devoted to June Jordan, whose work was read after Schmida wrote on the blackboard: "The Dilemma: Black English vs. Community."
The Cal State proposal for ending remedial work suggested that faculty establish programs such as Berkeley's for students with minor deficiencies. "We've had inquiries from around the world," said program director Art Quinn. Classes have a maximum of 14 students who meet for six hours each week. They get six units of credit and, if they pass, satisfy the freshman requirement for composition.
"Instead of honor students getting this special treatment, it goes to those who need it most," said Quinn. Success, he believes, appears to be linked to the priority students give the course, because it earns six credit units. Most college courses carry three or four units; the old "bonehead" English course earned only two units.
More than half the students have English as a second language, which means they begin the class unable to write English competently. Thus, Quinn attributes the growing need for remedial English to a baby boom in English as a Second Language students, rather than to failure in the high schools.
The writing program has been stimulated by wider understanding in UC
academic departments of a need for mastery of writing skills.
"Environmental majors must learn to write Environmental Impact Reports,"
Quinn observed. "Accountants know that the two- to three-page cover
letters have the most import; paleontologists know they have to communicate
in standard English."
--C.I.