Joseph Jones's "Muted Voices: High School Teachers, Composition, and the College Imperative"

Jones, Joseph. "Muted Voices: High School Teachers, Composition, and the College Imperative."  The Writing Instructor Sept 2007: n.pag. Web. 22 May 2011.

In “Muted Voices,” Joseph Jones explores how the teaching of English in high school has evolved as a means of preparing students for college English, explains that FYC began as a “stopgap measure” to remediate student writing until secondary schools could improve their instruction, notes the continuation of the attitude that FYC is a response to secondary schools’ failure, and finally presents the results of his own survey of high school students and teachers regarding their perception of secondary English and college English. 

Among other things, Jones’s survey reveals that students see their secondary writing instruction as having emphasized the five-paragraph essay (form) and the research report (mechanics of citation), not the development of ideas or arguments.  Similarly, they had fully grasped the idea that an essay should have a thesis, but understood no other writing skill as more important than any other.  Not surprisingly, these students discovered later that college composition emphasized analysis.  They also found that a thesis was still important, but saw the ‘college version’ of a thesis—“one’s ‘central argument’”—as wholly different from the high school version—“one’s ‘main idea’” (Jones). There were also notable mistakes on the students’ part regarding the amount of classic literature and literary analysis college would demand.  Jones sees these and other discrepancies between high school instruction, perception of college writing, and actual college writing as results of high school teachers’ misunderstanding of college instruction. 

Jones is careful not to blame teachers for their lack of knowledge regarding college writing, and he acknowledges that adolescent development plays a role in instruction.  He also blames tradition and history for inappropriately designed secondary curriculum.  Although his judgments are left unstated, I recognize and agree with many of them and was gratified to find that, in my own secondary instruction, I attempt to avoid many of the traps he describes.  My one beef with his viewpoint is that, as he notes, most students will not go on to become English majors.  I agree that we should therefore not emphasize literature so heavily, but I also see high school English as the place to be exposed to all parts of the English spectrum in the same way that we require students to take a variety of subjects in high school—exposure is key to development of intellect and interest. 

Jones seems to bemoan the fact that college composition drives high school teaching, implying that secondary education should not be so beholden to what happens on the college level.  On the other hand, his survey implies that imitation of FYC is his standard for a successful high school writing education (or does he mean it should replace FYC, verifying that FYC is remediation to make up for high school’s failure?).  While I see more value in my AP English Language class, which directly imitates FYC, than in most secondary offerings, I also do not see what that course offers as the sole or even primary aim of the secondary English classroom, in terms of writing or otherwise.

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A note to Dr. Depew: I have much more to say in response to Jones and in response to potential counterarguments to my own points, but, alas, am out of room!  Please be aware that I acknowledge many subtleties of this topic that I couldn't make space for.