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CULTURAL IMMERSION AND DEVELOPMENTAL EDUCATION

At Community College of Philadelphia, English teachers in the developmental programs have some
goals that are frequently aired and shared, readjusted and monitored, in department meetings. These goals
form a familiar litany: main ideas (either identified, or formulated), supporting details (to be distinguished
from main ideas or written in distinguished ways), and such miscellanea as complete sentences and the final
"s" used as it was in sixteenth century England. These literacy goals form entrance and exit criteria for a
year and a half of developmental writing and reading courses, for we have discovered that no matter how
directly we tackle these skills, students need to read and write a lot before they grow. We also have
discovered that literacy skills, by themselves, encourage a narrow conformity.

Three years ago a small group of us—who were stressing the humanities (in our developmental courses)
in what we thought were exciting ways—wanted to proceed more systematically and reach out to our
colleagues. We created a program that depends on the voluntary participation of teachers; we set themes for
a semester, and they can use one or all themes and accompanying sets of materials, as they desire. At the
beginning of the semester, the faculty coordinators give all English teachers a schedule of
educational/cultural events; during the semester we use a Teaching Center to disseminate newsletter articles
and flyers advertising new materials and to arrange exhibits and displays of articles and books.

Curriculum Goals

We established three clusters of curriculum goals. The first cluster of curriculum goals involves learning to
learn. Basic skills are part of this process, but we have acknowledged that students need to practice these
skills on meaningful content. We seek to develop more sophisticated skills which stimulate independent
thinking: e.g., (1) considering and evaluating alternate points of view; and (2) being alert to the exact choice
of words, their connotations, the power of figurative language. We want students to question the
underlying implications of texts rather than merely responding to surface meaning. To help teachers
inlegrale these process goals of thinking, reading and writing, we create exercises which use the subject
matter of the programs (context-embedded practice) and write sequences of discussion, short answer and
essay questions to accompany texts.

Independent thinking also applies to the process of learning standard English. We want our students to
analyze this process and to understand the ‘‘origins, nature, diversity, function and effects of language.’ To
achieve these ends we have encouraged the teachers of even the most remedial students to discuss this history
of the English language. We encourage this by providing handouts with Old, Middle and Shakespearean language
side by side and essays that discuss the role of conquerors (like William) in effecting language change and prestige.
We also have invited colleagues to use their acting talent in Old and Middle English. We invited William Labov
to discuss dialects with our developmental students, and that semester we taught scenes from Shaw's Pygntalion
and showed the movie My Fair Lady.

The second cluster of curriculum goals involves student experiences. One vehicle for this goal has been for
students to read plays, act out scenes, and see professional performances. Words come alive and are
powerful; students often identify strongly with certain characters. We usually highlight one play a semester
so there is plenty of time for background materials; and we choose plays, such as Graham Greene’s Power
and the Glory and The Diary of Anne Frank, where historical context enriches the meaning of the play. When
students attend a professional performance for the first time, their written reviews reflect an active
participation in an event. Trips to museums produce keen interest.

We tie experiential activities to skills involving reading and writing. One project involves our students
reading aloud to children. We have invited outstanding public school teachers to come and talk about ways
adults can interact with children to help them learn; then each student reads to a child a number of times.
Written reports of this experience almost always reflect pride—both explicitly in what the student says and
in the careful presentation of the paper.

 

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4} Community College Leadership Program, The University of Texas at Austin, EDB 348, Austin, Texas 78712

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