This paper asserts that by removing speech and rhetoric from the "English" department and making composition a stepchild of literature, Harvard and Johns Hopkins Universities ultimately made it much more difficult for writing instructors today to capitalize on the strong physical underpinnings that speech and rhetoric provide to writing. Writing students gain much of their knowledge about writing in speech class, largely through their ears rather than solely through their eyes and intellect. The problem of student writers being removed from a significant audience could be substantially reduced if introductory speaking and writing courses were combined. At a University of Alaska campus, a two-year pilot course was developed which melded first semester freshman writing with the basic oral communication course. This evolved into a nine-credit year-long communication block with the freshman writing course integrated with the first half of the speech class during fall semester and the second writing course integrated with the remainder of the interpersonal/small group communication/public speaking course during the spring semester. Both have met with success. (Contains 26 references; appendixes contain a memorandum describing the course, a course syllabus, 2 course outlines, and a sample student information sheet.) (CR)