I too am normally reluctant to classify a remark as stupid; however,
the list member who indicated that class size was irrelevant in teaching
writing must have been brought up by a school board member.  My alma mater,
MSC, whose regular Freshman English program I have praised highly, had
a secondary program in basic writing skills for those who had failed the
English placement exam.  I had scored a 100 in the exam but my advisor had
accidentally put my test in the "Dummy English" pile; therefore, I had to
take a non-credit English class on the same semester as my first Freshman
English class.  My advisor apologized to me later but I replied that I had
learned more in Dummy English than in regular English because the class size
was quite small--around ten students--and we wrote a theme each day instead
of one a week.  The professor in the Dummy Class was also an excellent
teacher.

Having taught across the academic curriculum, I can aver that, in my
experience, class size is more important in English composition than in any
other academic class, including mathematics and foreign languages.

N. Scott Catledge, PhD/STD
Professor Emeritus

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