I believe the Feb. 26 article on the Teach-In Two misrepresented my position. I fully support students’ efforts to extend the classroom by sponsoring such events as Teach-In Two. As I wrote in my memo to staff, “The Teach In is an excellent opportunity for first-year students to see that the rhetorical issues we teach are relevant outside the classroom.”

However, I did not, as your article suggests, encourage staff to cancel classes. Rather, I wrote, “If you [instructors] cancel class, please require some kind of written assignment from them [students] — a summary, a rhetorical analysis, a critique, etc., of the presentation they attend.” I also wrote that instructors should offer “alternative assignments if they [students] find a particular talk too controversial to attend.”

Margaret Graham

Director of first-year composition