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, *********************************************************** To join or leave this LISTSERV list, please visit the list's web interface at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/archives/ateg.html and select "Join or leave the list" Visit ATEG's web site at http://ateg.org/