A proposal for curriculum criticism contains three characteristics: (1) Criticism provides a view of curricula from the perspective of the student; (2) Criticism provides an assessment from the viewpoint of the critic; and (3) Criticism reveals the common interactions of students with facets of the curricula. (JN)

Curriculum development efforts for English instruction over the past 20 years are reviewed, and an "inside-outside" approach that uses the structure of the discipline, or its inner core, to guide curriculum development is suggested. Three principles--metaphoric thinking, writing as reconstruction of experience, and language in context--would…