As the College attempts to better prepare freshmen for future written endeavors, Dartmouth's long-standing first-year English program will soon witness significant changes in its administrative handling, Dean of the Faculty Michael Gazzaniga has announced.
In the current program's place will be one that brings required writing courses under the leadership of an acting director, Gazzaniga said, noting that the transition process would span about three years.
The announcement comes in the wake of recommendations from the Committee on Instruction's subcommittee on writing, formed last spring to develop a program that brings required writing courses -- English 2-3, English 5 and first-year seminars -- together under one umbrella, provide resources in writing pedagogy for faculty teaching those courses and oversee College-wide academic support for writing courses.
"What's happened is that the COI subcommittee on writing has, in the Fall term, reviewed the situation of required writing courses at the College, then, working with the dean and the COI, recommended that there be a transitional writing program that brings together the required writing courses into one administrative entity," said Alexandra Halasz, the subcommittee's chair.
Halasz, the English department's vice-chair and the current overseer of the English 5 curriculum, said the creation of a transitional writing program, a significant change in how writing is situated in the College curriculum, would help coordinate instruction between courses taught within the English department and outside of it.
"It is difficult to coordinate the courses now located within the English department -- English 2, 3 and 5 -- and the courses that operate out of different departments -- the first-year seminars. One of the goals is to think about the way those courses work together," Halasz said.
Gazzaniga has also announced the search for an internal faculty member to oversee the program. The COI subcommittee on writing will choose the acting director from tenured members of the College's arts and sciences faculty.
The College's writing curriculum has been a topic of discussion among the faculty and within the English department for several years. Dartmouth is currently the only member of the Ivy League without an independent writing program.
"It's not that very good teaching is not going on in English 5, but we've until now not had the sense of mission and vision that we think writing instruction should have at an institution as prestigious as Dartmouth," said English department chair Peter Travis.
Although the College's mandatory English 5 course will be taught under the umbrella of the new writing program, it will still be taught by English faculty, Halasz and Travis said.
Pending a sizable donation, the College also hopes to be able to require English 5 of all students, eliminating the exemption that many now receive.
"Eventually -- sooner rather than later, we hope -- we'll have a very large input of money coming from a donor in order to expand the English 5 offerings, so that all first-year students take English 5," Travis said.
According to Travis, the new writing program will be a major curricular line item on the College's upcoming capital campaign.
"My understanding is that there are potential donors out there, that there is considerable interest," Travis said.
Halasz, like many other faculty members, said there was a need for virtually all incoming students to be taught about writing at the college level.
"There's a real difference in what counts as excellent writing at a secondary level and what counts as good writing at a college level. I personally feel that 99 percent of the students who matriculate at Dartmouth would benefit from a course in expository writing at our campus," Halasz said. "I think there are some people who just have a gift, but most of us struggle."
The English department has recently-approved changes to the English 5 course independent of the College's new writing program.
"There will be a slight shift from its being a course based almost solely on reading literary texts to courses that will have a variety of texts from a variety of disciplines, and there will be more emphasis than there has been in some sections of English 5 in the past on this being a course in writing instruction," Travis said.
Professors, however, will be given the same leeway they currently have in choosing the texts for their courses. But, the English department hopes to publish a short description of English 5 courses so students may select a section which corresponds with their interests.
"Every section of English 5 is going to have posted on the English 5 website a description of its pedagogy vis--vis writing and the major texts that will be taught, and students will have the ability to select the sections that they would like to be students in, rather like first-year seminars now," Travis said.
The other major change to English 5 in the near future will be the adoption of a rhetorical text, which will be taught in each section.
"All students taking English 5 will have experience with this same rhetorical handbook. There will be a kind of shared language on what is good about writing and what is good about good writing," Travis said.
