It was only a matter of time before the Freakonomics guys at the New York Times got hold of creative writing.
For years, colleges have treated their students as consumers, building ever more elaborate facilities and hiring ever more dazzling star scholars to lure applicants. They did this regardless of how high these investments drove tuition, since easy credit meant families could stretch to cover the costs. But with the credit crisis come signs that the college bubble is bursting, as “consumers who have questioned whether it is worth spending $1,000 a square foot for a home are now asking whether it is worth spending $1,000 a week to send their kids to college,” the Chronicle of Higher Education suggests. Further evidence: The New Yorker aims to deflate creative writing programs, “designed on the theory that students who have never published a poem can teach other students who have never published a poem how to write a publishable poem.”
A few universities – like the University of Toledo under its embarrassing president – are set to enjoy the benefits of peer instruction, as it’s known, not just in creative writing courses, but across the curriculum.
Toledo details here.
I think we all recognize, instinctively, the enormous budgetary advantages of making students teach each other.
June 10th, 2009 at 3:06PM
More of "the blind leading the blind" to encourage consumer satisfaction!
After all, my students thought I (as a grad student adjunct instructor with an MA) was smug and arrogant when I critiqued their abysmal writing, but they thought Slack-jawed Andy sitting next to them was more qualified to tell them "good job!" when they peer-reviewed the plagiarized mass of shit copy-and-pasted the night before.
I was even shocked when an excellent writer, the only A student in the past 2 semesters, failed to inform her peer that she needed to, you know, cite her sources and use quotation marks. See, the plagiarist might dislike her then!
June 10th, 2009 at 3:12PM
One of my more cynical professor friends refers to this technique as: "ignorance basking in its own light…"
[I’ve been accused of cynicism also. On a course evaluation: “Dr. Gleason is too synical.]
Holy Toledo, Batman!