Notes on Freshman English at UNH During the Post-Murray Era

At the University of New Hampshire in our freshman English course, from which no student is exempted, as well as in our sophomore writing course and in most of our advanced writing courses, we have weekly conferences. (Murray, "What Can You Say Besides Awk?" Learning by Teaching: Selected Articles on Writing and Teaching, p. 151)

If students use invalid criteria to evaluate their evolving texts, the revision process is disrupted. Either they do not see any need to revise, or they revise in ways that do not improve-and may weaken-their texts. In order to uncover some of the inappropriate criteria that college freshmen use, I conducted case studies of two students in a freshman writing course taught by an experienced teaching assistant. I monitored the changes in the composing processes over the eight-week duration of the writing course. Unlike the traditional writing course where students usually receive only written responses to their work, in this course students met once a week with the instructor to discuss problems and possible revisions. Students wrote a three to five page paper each week and were allowed to choose their own topics. A major revision of a piece was counted as a new paper, and students were graded on their best two papers at the end of the course. Thus, the course structure encouraged revision in a way that traditional courses, which often make revision into extra work, do not. (Tom Newkirk, "Barriers to Revision" p. 50)