One year after the University mandated an additional English class for incoming freshmen, students are becoming increasingly unhappy with the policy change.
Last year, the University implemented a revised English composition policy, which required all freshmen to take English 105, a course that replaced English 101 and 102. Before, students could place out of the courses if their SAT or Advanced Placement scores were above a certain level.
Todd Taylor, acting director for UNC’s writing program, said the revised curriculum was implemented because standardized exams don’t provide an accurate indicator of college writing skills.
“The SAT doesn’t really measure college writing,” Taylor said. “It’s not about that. It doesn’t even pretend to measure that.”
Taylor said the writing assignments in English 105 are designed to be more applicable to the writing that students will have to do at UNC, and are genre-based.
He said UNC’s peer institutions are increasingly requiring students to take at least one writing course as part of their first-year experience, which helped push UNC to make the change.
Mark Steele, an incoming freshman, said he would have placed out of the writing requirement under the old system, and he does not think that the new requirement is fair.
But Taylor said he feels the change has benefited students, and does not feel that it’s unfair to students who would have placed out of the class with AP or SAT scores. He said he thought it would be more unfair not to properly prepare undergraduates for college writing.
“(Under the old system) there were students who had good language ability, but they didn’t have necessarily the kind of experiences and preparation they (needed) to write in college,” Taylor said.
