Homepage

Back

Archives

On Feb. 6, Dr. Eli Goldblatt, writing director and associate professor of English at Temple University, gave a lecture titled “Writing beyond the Curriculum.” “The talk I’m going to do today comes from what I’ve been doing the past couple of years with Temple’s writing program, and reconceiving the place of writing programs in relation to communities and schools,” said Goldblatt.

“One of the things that Temple teaches me everyday is that we have to think about college very differently. It is much more frequent that students take 5, 6 and 7 years to finish college at Temple. This is partly because, according to the numbers, 80 percent of Temple students work 20 hours or more.” Goldblatt added, “At the heart of my work over the last few years is this simple principle: If a college or university is willing to engage in any kind of community service, that university or college needs to recognize that it itself must be in some sense affected by that service. In other words, it can’t just go along with without recognizing that the work outside changes what you’re doing inside.”

He talked about research he conducted with local high schools in the Philadelphia area. He looked at students from a variety of regional high schools and how they performed once they arrived at Temple. He pointed out that some students in the inner city are at a severe disadvantage entering ninth grade. “Twenty-two percent, fewer than one in four students who start ninth grade graduate from some Philly high school,” said Goldblatt. “What the state standardized tests suggest is that even many kids who do graduate from city schools are not reading at a level necessary for college success.”

The end of his talk focused on the ways Temple connects with community and school partners. The idea is that these connections will strengthen literacy in underserved areas and improve chances for students who move on from city schools to college.