Viking_Yearbook_66

s . , ENCLISH COMPOSITION English composition faced the age-old probleT of showing.hordes of "fr"rhn.'en what they didn't know and needed most... how to communicate on paper. But this year comp had a new look, or at least a new t".nnique about it. Cone are the three terms of ."rp fri all freshn..,en. Cone with it are the horrendous schedul- ing [roblems created for the ha_pless freshmen,who never can get W"r'tll at any but the most conflicting times. The Writing Depart- ment decided to distribute English comp through three years with students taking a term of it ejch year. There are persuasive argu- ments that the-spacing over three years makes possible improve- ment of the course it;lf. But there is obvious motive for change . . . the freshmen crush in a school that can hardly cop.e with the students it has. The comp revision eased the load of the depart- ment in two ways. First, ih".onrputers decided who would take lo,11p which teim, neatly cutting the.class load each term to a third of what it would have beei under the old system' Second, the second and third terms to be offered in the next two years will see an ever greater reduction in students because of the normal PSC attrition rate. The Writing Department is giving students time to flunk out both before und b"t*een terms of English composi- itn. in" good thing about it is that many fill the "extra" two terms' void with- courr", ln literature which they otherwise would not have taken. But the new system may leave many unable to .cope with the essay exam*s now virtually extinct on the underclass level, and it may speed the trend to IBM exams' ffi 30