I had read most of the classics (in English)--fiction and non-fiction--
before high school.  I attended the then top-rated public high school in 
FL.  In most classes, papers were expected to be well-phrased as well as
content appropriate.

I turned down scholarship offers from Tulane and Duke to accept an
out-of-state tuition waiver from Mississippi Southern College (MSC) because
it was the least expensive public college I could find.

MSC was required to accept any graduate of a public high school in MS (This
was during segregation, so no African-American applications were welcome).
Mississippians could graduate with pitifully few academic credits: a very
intelligent friend claimed that she had taken all 10 academic classes that
were offered by her school.

MSC was prepared for such students.  First quarter, we studied grammar and
wrote weekly themes on class that were marked for errors and returned for
rewriting; then, after a quick review by the professor, were kept in a
folder by each student.  Second quarter, we studied paragraph and sentence
structure, particularly clauses and wrote themes as above.  The difference
was that writers had to continue to pay attention to correct grammar and
vocabulary as well as clause and paragraph structure; e.g., wording of topic
sentences introducing paragraphs, logical flow within the paragraph, logical
arrangement of paragraphs.  The third quarter, we wrote descriptive,
argumentative, and expository themes that were grammatically correct and
rhetorically appropriate (writing in all simple sentences would fail you).

It was legal for us to show our marked and corrected themes to each other to
ensure that we had corrected all the errors before we turned them back to
the professor.  I saw students who had never written a theme turn in
well-crafted papers by the end of third quarter.  Admittedly, MSC had a very
high
drop-out rate for Freshman, but with an open admission policy, such a rate
was expected.

To ensure that MSC graduated only those who could express themselves in
correct English, a "Junior English" examination was required for all
would-be graduates.  Fortunately, it could be taken once a quarter,
beginning Fall Quarter of the student's Junior year; unfortunately, too many
students put it off until Winter or even Spring Quarter of their Senior
year.  Especially for transfer students (even from Emory, Rice, Vanderbilt,
and Tulane--I had friends from those), the results could be disastrous.  A
friend transferred
his junior year from Alabama and waited until his Senior to start taking the
test.  He failed three times and did not graduate, but because he lacked
fewer than eight quarter hours to graduate, he was allowed to begin graduate
work.  He took the test three more quarters then dropped out of school with
a year of graduate credit and no degree.

The point of my lengthy exposition is to point out that a well-crafted
program in Freshman writing can teach writing to the most poorly-prepared
students--some, whom I knew, passed not only Freshman English but the
"Junior English Examination" Fall Quarter of their Junior year.   Then
again, I met a colleague at SAMLA who had been enthusiastic about his
up-coming assignment to establish a Freshman English curriculum at his new
school.  He was now looking for another job.  He had been told that his 
new English classes were efforts to impose a outdated meddle-class White 
written language that insulted the multi-cultured body by both indicating
that their modes of expression were not just as valuable as his and by his
insistence on making them write and grading their written work products.    
   
N. Scott Catledge, 

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