Lavinia - Jeff - Q. 4

The primary focus of our texts was on the writing course content: assignments, samples and syllabi that set up the mass-production model of Freshman composition. What lacks from the picture and from Brereton's account as well is a more elaborate discussion of the following issues:
- relationship of writing to audience. Students seem to write just to accomplish a writing task, instead of envisioning a larger purpose/rationale/context
- relationship of writing to truth/knowledge/reality. Students seem to approach the tasks in a closed circle, i.e., they get through the task in a rather arbitrary way (topics seem randomly selected, e.g., sample on art, Thanksgiving, church attendance, the value of intercollegiate athletics)
The samples and course descriptions oftentimes reveal mechanical presentation.