OPINION
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
PUBLISHED DAILY SINCE 1912
CRAIG LANG, Editor
CRAIG LANG, Editor
SUSANNA LOOF, Managing editor
KIMBERLY CRAFTREE, Editorial editor
TOM EBLEN, General manager, news adviser
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Monday, February 3, 1997
Amy R. Miller/ KANSAN
Editorials
GTAs should use current events to improve discussion sections
Some discussion sections have become a complete waste of time for students. For many, this weekly meeting is no more than a quiz and a regurgitation of the week's lectures where little, if any, new information is introduced.
One problem is that some graduate teaching assistants are not devoting a substantial amount of time to these discussions, which is apparent in their presentations. Granted, most GTAs are teaching several discussion sections and taking their own classes as well.
However, if graduate students are going to teach discussion sections, they should make adequate preparations for the classes. Any discussion class would be more lively and educational if discussion leaders would focus on current issues that relate to the subject matter rather than review notes from the lecture class.
Discussion leaders should do more than simply repeat the week's lecture.
The meeting is a discussion class, after all. This method would not only make class more interesting, but it also would allow students to see what purpose the course serves in everyday life.
Discussion sections are supposed to make large lecture classes seem more personal. From a student's point of view, the classes are also an opportunity to ask questions about a particular point of study. But if students just gather in a smaller group to hear the lectures repeated, these goals are not fulfilled.
The fault with bad discussion classes does not solely lie with GTAs. Some students don't attend the full lecture and thus expect discussion leaders to spoonfeed them what they need to know for an exam. Others don't care to participate in any type of discussion, even in a small group. Still others don't even attend the sections. All of this contributes to the problem. But discussion section leaders have a special responsibility to encourage students to participate, to make us think and to help us learn.
This is not to say that all discussion classes are boring or meaningless, or that GTAs don't take their jobs seriously. Many of them are serious and do their jobs well. But the best discussion sections are those that bring greater insight to subject matter and engage all of its participants in thoughtful dialogue about real-world conflicts. That's when everyone learns.
DREW DEGOOD FOR THE EDITORIAL BOARD
Advising gets much-needed facelift
Often, students come away from advising and enrollment with problems and questions, little direction and no guidance. This is a major flaw in the education the University of Kansas offers. But the Committee for the Improvement of Advising Services for Freshmen and Sophomores has proposed a blueprint to change the way advising is conducted at the University.
Without solid advising, many freshmen — and even upperclassmen — are without means of getting the classes they need to complete a degree program. As a result, students sometimes end up leaving the University because they felt like they were getting nowhere, or they stay longer because they didn't know until late in their college career what was required to earn their degrees. The proposed new system will attempt to alleviate problems with getting appointments, having enough time to complete advising properly, and even receiving correct
Proposed changes to the advising system are a step in the right direction.
information.
establishing a central advising center where students can go to get answers to their questions, regardless of which program or school they are in;
Proposed changes include:
- providing structured training for advisors and
implementing a method for students to evaluate advisors.
Although much fault lies with the present system, the proposal points out that some of this blame lies with students. Indifference or ignorance can lead to a lack of advising, and waiting until the last minute can yield similar results. Changing the way advising works, then, is a multifaceted project.
Under the current system, students are finding indifferent or uninformed advisers who are not affiliated with their majors. To add to the problem is the fact that appointments are not necessarily easy to make. Only by restructuring the advising process in a radical manner can headway be made.
Most of the proposed changes will take place between 1997 and 1998, which is none too soon. These changes will require an expansion of the current budget, but in the interest of the University's purpose, this is a justifiable expense. Students' futures are at stake.
With these changes, as well as the addition of on-line information about advising, the system will finally be accessible to everyone who needs it. If any progress is to be made academically, future students need to be better informed about how best to guide their learning experience.
KANSAN STAFF
LATINA SULLYAN . . . Associate Editorial
KRISTIE BLASI . . . News
NOVELA SOMMERS . . . News
LESLIE TAYLOR . . . News
AMANDA TRAUGHBER . . News
TARA TRENARY . . News
DAVID TESKA . . . Online
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GINA THORNBURG . . Associate Sports
BRADLEY BROOKS . . Campus
LINSDHE HENRY . . Campus
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PAM DISHMAN . Photo
TYLER WIRKEN . Photo
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ANDREA ALBRIGHT . Wire
LZ MUSSER . Special sections
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I received a book as a gift this year. I spent an entire day reading it. It was witty, funny, entertaining, surprising and a little shocking. No, it wasn't Michael Crichton's new novel *Airframe*, although that one entertained me for a good five hours. I received Patricia T. O'Conner's new book *Wildfire*.
Columns
New book challenges old rules of grammar
It sounds like a sequel to the self-help book I'm OK, You're OK, but the help this book offers has nothing to do with psychology. Its full title is Woe is I: The Grammarphobe's Guide to Better English in Plain Enlish.
In her book, O'Conner, an editor at The New York Times Book Review, explains all the rules of the English language, from the most
language, from the most obvious to the most obscure, in the plainest English possible. She stays away from the big grammatical terms our high school English teachers made us memorize, because she knows that even though we memorized them, we never understood them.
Instead of dryly trying to explain when to use that vs. when to use which with terms like superative clauses and the past perfect uses of transitive verbs, which mean almost nothing to anyone except English majors, she explains the rules using easy-to-understand examples. By the way, you use which inside commas; that doesn't need commas.
O'Conner keeps her writing style so upbeat that you almost forget that you are reading a grammar book. She uses humor to keep you interested. In fact, most of the chapters themselves are plays on words. Her chapter on punctuation is entitled Comma Sutra: The Joy of Punctuation.
Not only does O'Conner's book offer a guide to grammar, it also contains a chapter on cliches and even lists those rules of grammar which, I mean that, are no longer rules. Many phrases O'Conner cites as cliches surprised me, such as innocent bystander, Generation X and seriously consider.
However, I thought the most surprising chapter of Woe Is I was The Living Dead, where O'Conner shoots down many of the rules to which English teachers hold tenaciously. Or, should I say, many of the rules teachers hold tenaciously to.
I will warn English majors and their professors to stop reading now, because the next few paragraphs will question many of their beliefs.
Rule myth No. 1: it is wrong to end a sentence with a preposition.
O'Conner says that "This is a rule that modern grammarians have tried to get us out from under." Forget the formal British way of talking. How many of us really stop, think and then say To whose party are you going? when we could just say Whose party are you going to?
Rule myth No. 2: It is wrong to start a sentence with, or, and or but.
In formal term papers, it is still wrong. However, in casual writing, even in-class essays, and but make good sentence starters. And they're much shorter than their alternatives like nevertheless or however.
Rule myth No. 3: It is wrong to use a double negative.
Sometimes you have to use double negatives to make a point. I don't think the doctor is unavailable. Of course, O'Connor still warns to stay away from the most obvious examples, especially in formal writing.
O'Connor also kills many of the grammatical errors journalists are taught to avoid, like the passive voice. She even goes as far as saying that since can mean because, while can mean although, and over can mean more than.
Once again, most of the rules she breaks she also follows in formal writing, so all you English maiors can breathe again.
I have a feeling that William Strunk and E.B White may have received the same kind of reaction as O'Canner when they published their *Elements of Style* over, I mean more than, 50 years ago. And that book has since become the writer's bible.
Mary Corcoran is an Overland Park sophomore in Journalism.
Here's all of the news that wasn't fit to print
Welcome to another semester of intellectual autopilot, and welcome back to my space. I feel the need to review this past year and put it in some sort of perspective because I have this feeling that if I don't, I'll forget it ever happened.
So I proudly present to you the 1996 Listless List, my register of the most boring and banal people, places and events you'll find outside of Must See TV. (If you're reading this while trying to keep up with the labyrinthian plotting of "Suddenly, Caroline Befriends the Single Guy Behaving Badly in the City, please don't let me keep you
1. Election '96: About as suspenseful as one of those Choose-Your-Own Adventure serial mysteries from the third grade book club, and nearly as engrossing. So a political party whose past leaders have been responsible for skyrocketing inflation, larceny, selling arms to Iran, destroying the economy, causing the needless deaths of millions by attempting to sweep AIDS under the rug and other generic Machiavellian machinations has been prevented from retaking the White House. Pity. Where's G. Gordon Liddy when you need him?
— in this week's episode, someone goes on a date!
2. Jenny McCarthy: This generation's Suzanne Somers recently announced her next project: She's the Sheriff'97.
Without further hesitation, and not necessarily in order of insignificance:
3. **Rent:** A bunch of bohemian artists in the East Village wear suspicious-looking vintage clothing (much of which was available at Bloomingdale's). Life is tough in the real world, where you have to wear McDonald's headsets and break into elaborately choreographed bumping and grinding at the drop of a socially relevant hat. Cats on two legs. Here's a note for future reference: legitimate social drama tends not to come with merchandising tie-ins (i.e. in 1956, there was no The Crucible boutine at Saks Fifth Avenue).
4. Madonna and Courtney Love's Bids for Cinematic Legitimacy: Infamous, sexually assertive women who take risks with their hair
9. Bill Clinton: The man with history's fastest-declining hipness level since David Letterman is an excruciating embarrassment to watch in action.
color play infamous, sexually assertive women who took risks with their hair color and are now dead. Watching them strive to not suck, and succeed, was more tedious than the letterbox version of Shanghai Surprise.
10. David Letterman: The man with history's fastest-declining hignness level since Bill Clinton is an excruciating embarrassment to watch in action.
11. Demi Moore in anything she does. Memo to Demi: rumor has it that Ally Sheedy and Andrew McCarthy are free for St. Elmo's Fire II. Please keep your breasts to yourself this time. Thank you.
8. **Punk:** Strictly for those who missed White Lion and Winger arena concerts the first time around. All about rejecting societal constrictions (as long as your hair is bleached, your cartilage is pierced, and you’re wearing the right kind of coat).
5. The Death of Alternative Music: Scores of underwhelming sophomore albums by last year's flashes in-the-pan gave credence to the suspicion that the only alternative provided is to good quality. Mourning? Take heart; it's only six months or so until the revival. The K-Tel six-disc collection is also forthcoming (e.g. Disc Six: 1995-1996: The Shergilt-Crow-Puts-Away-Her-Curling-Iron Years.)
7. The Birth of Madonna's Baby: MTV reenactments of her many and varied attempts at conception were light-years more entertaining.
6. Kathie Lee Gifford: Her clothing line scandal provided a shocking revelation: thousands toil in sweatshop-like conditions for a fraction of the pay they deserve under the blind eye of smilingly oblivious corporations. (This year, a tearful Regis will reveal that the sky is blue.) This news was most surprising to two small, non-mutually-exclusive segments of the population: people who believe that America is the greatest country in the world and those who rely on Wal-Mart for all their clothing needs.
Michael Martin is a Lenexa sophomore in English and Journalism.
Letter
Basketball campers are team's true fans
I am writing this letter in response to the Jan. 22 column by John Erck entitled Field House Campers Are Wimps. From the detached, condescending tone of his column, Erck is not a camper. If he were, he would know that the students who camp out are the most dedicated Jayhawk basketball lovers on campus. Although students don't stay there 24 hours a day, many teams stake out their spot a week in advance. These students sit for two-thirds of each day in Allen Field House, which is not a thrilling way to spend your time, except for getting the occasional glance of Roy. But for these devoted fans, the payoff is worth it: great seats to watch a fabulous team.
Unfortunately, this extremely fair system is ruined by some fair-weather fans who show up two hours before the doors open just because ESPN is broadcasting the game and cut in front of those of us who have been camping out for days in
advance. Maybe Mr. Rogers does need to pay Erck and the rest of these inconsiderate fans a visit to teach them something about respect and courtesy. Campers have every right to expect that non-campers who have not put in the same amount of time as they will have behave like the adults they supposedly are.
However, campers and non-campers alike, we are here to have fun and enjoy watching our great team go for it all.
Kerri Shafer
Topeka freshman