How can a college administrator defend small class sizes in introductory writing courses? There are three main warrants: policy, research, practice. Policy.
For decades,
the National Council of Teachers of English and the Conference on College
Composition and Communication have recommended a cap of 20 students for
regular composition and 15 for basic writing. See "Teaching composition:
A position statement,"College English 46.6 (1984), 612-614; and "Statement
of principles and standards for the postsecondary teaching of writing,"College
Composition and Communication 40.3 (1989), 329-336, also available
online. Research. Trish Roberts-Miller, at the University of Texas, has a fine essay, "Class Size in College Writing Courses," that locates the problems and promises in defending small class size through research findings. She also provides a bibliography of 18 items, with some commentary. A recent piece by Sid Gilbert of the University of Guelph, with good references, argues that the interaction between personality of the teacher and class size is important. Alice Horning has a review of the literature on class size and writing courses, soon to appear in the WPA Journal. The most extensive bibliography on class-size and the teaching of writing at the college level is in CompPile. Entering "class-size" into the Search Terms field (without the quotes but with the hyphen) will locate over 200 cites. Practice
may provide the most persuasive argument. The following list of self-reported enrollment caps in undergraduate
writing courses was begun in 1998 by Greg Glau A hyphen means a range; e.g., "12-15" means the cap is from 12 to 15 students. A slash means two different courses; e.g., "16/20 2nd semester" means the cap in the first semester course is 16 students and the cap in the second semester is 20 students.
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