Classics-L: dissertation and teaching: "But, beyond the personal issue, it seemed to me that Classics is

>misdirecting its talent. The fact that PhD programs don't teach their

>students how to teach is a scandal of long-standing. (Personally I think

>the recentish on-list suggestion that acting should be a graduate

>requirement is an excellent one. Teaching is a performance skill.) It

>would

>be bad enough if programs were also not teaching students how to write.

>But, through the genre of the dissertation, *successful* students in PhD

>programs are actually being taught how *not* to write-- how not to write

>clearly and effectively, how not to make remarks of import on issues that

>matter, how not to distinguish evidence that matters for an argument from

>evidence which does not matter, how not to avoid crafting too-lengthy

>sentences with too many parallel clauses.... (damn it!). How many of these

>bad lessons, once learned in the intense formative experience of writing a

>dissertation, will never be unlearned, affecting the writing and even the

>thinking of the future professoriate?

"