I must apologize in advance for any emotions stirred as a result of the following points of view. In no way have I intended to single out any one individual in the passages to come.
The truth in all honesty is that I have been disappointed with the curriculum presented to me in English-111 this semester. This in part inspires my major paper. We are assigned works which all follow the short story, or "essayish" (if I may be granted for a moment the liberty to create my own words, much in the style of Shakespeare himself). Now, in all honesty, I have absolutely no problem with the writings selected for the course, nor do I particularly dislike the style itself; what I may ask, however, is why not some variation? A few essays, maybe a short novel, a couple pieces of poetry dare I suggest a play? In this way, the student could be exposed to various writing styles and subjects. I believe that this would, like I mentioned before, "broaden his/her horizons", not to mention make things a bit more interesting. The curriculum is very structured; in my opinion, a bit too structured for a class titled Elementary Composition. Rather than exploring the multitude of writing styles available to the English language, we are required to compose a set of "papers" which are to follow a strict format, content, and subject. At this point, given what I have said so far, I would still be loath to declare this course among those considered to be defined by Paulo Freire's Banking Concept of Education. However, I am not finished just yet. One of my greatest pet peeves upon receiving a proofread paper is to see lines of text crossed out and rewritten, or even replaced completely. In my opinion, changes to the actual message of the work need to be talked out with the author of the text, in the hopes of preserving the message and individual style of that particular author. But inked in with the intrusive lines of red pen oh-so-often come the words "this is how I would have written it".
