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The Pedagogical Pitfalls Of Literature In College Composition And Teacher Education: A Foundational Analysis, Rinn Norman

Symposium of Student Scholars

Many of today’s college students struggle with college-level writing in Standard English, and during the last few decades, educators, parents, and experts in countless professional fields have begun to express a collective frustration over the quality of college graduates’ written English. However, this lack of quality in students’ and graduates’ writing is not due to laziness or generational differences, but rather a foundational shortcoming in the use of literary texts as the basis for instructional material in lower-level composition classes. This paper examines the traditional use of literature-based instruction in first-year composition (FYC) classes as well as undergraduate and graduate …