We started doing serious work on parts of speech and other aspects of grammar when I was in fifth grade. We also learned how to write topic sentences, etc. This work continued all the way through high school, and we had to start writing short papers in junior high. My Honors English class had to write a serious term paper (20 page minimum) in 10th grade. My high school offered an advanced composition course for 12th graders.
My college required that every student take a semester-long Freshman writing seminar class. If you didn't take one, you didn't graduate, and taking the class after your freshman year was, shall we say, not recommended.
We had to write a short paper every week. The professor shredded our papers, and then we had to rewrite them and hand them back in by the end of the week. That class was very demanding. I just looked online; they still offer 13 sections of that course at my small alma mater.
I took two more English classes after that, and my first year of classes prepared me to write over 100 pages in my sophomore year (not counting lab reports). I got all As that year. If my freshmen professors hadn't been so tough, I wouldn't have done so well.
I looked at course catalogs for a couple of local colleges, and their catalogs list courses in expository writing, and the California universities seem to require a course in composition to graduate. So if all these places are requiring these courses, why aren't students learning how to write? Are the courses less demanding? Do the profs not tear the papers apart? Does anyone know?
