"He is suggesting that once pre-digested glop is introduced, the kids stop thinking about anything at all. He is also suggesting that thinking involves making connections."
I think this is a bull's eye. The problem is exactly this. I've seen it happen in my daughter's debate classes. In fact, I saw it in my own debates, as well as composition courses. Students get obsessed with the content, with winning the argument, and in so doing tend to repeat the same arguments they've read elsewhere.
I don't think this professor is repudiating other ways of teaching composition. I think he's saying that somewhere along the way, the students ought to stop and learn the form - and that his course was as good a place as any. I don't know that students will just pick up the form by using it. Students can pick up wrong ideas and use them poorly as well as they can pick up good ones.
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