Contains the first chapter of a new biography of an influential writing teacher, Mina Shaughnessy, who was a founder of the "Journal of Basic Writing". (PA)

Recounts how Frank Aydelotte, an MIT English professor, became AT&T's first writing consultant and created a year-long program that taught employees to think and write about issues important to their work. Suggests that the course offers insights into early consulting work and shows how Aydelotte's humanistic approach to technical…

A Kentucky native, Harriette Arnow was proud of her roots and presented Appalachian culture honestly, warts and all. Although her work was firmly anchored in place, Arnow's ability to write about human beings and the interactions between them transcended regional boundaries. She was a pivotal staff member at Hindman Settlement School's Appalachian…

Discusses the use of lists and classification in poetry throughout history. Gives examples of lists in verse from Elizabethan to modern times. Offers some basic types and functions of the "list poem." Relates the lists poems of a fourth grade class. (PRA)

Citing the revolutionary ideas that Theodore Baird brought to his freshman composition classes at Amherst College (Massachusetts)--ideas such as requiring students to write often and from experience--this book examines the innovative work and groundbreaking ideas of Baird and his staff. The book focuses on Baird's pedagogy and his belief in a…

By the late 19th century, the new universities in the United States had become so closely intertwined with the research imperative that their future depended on their position at the center of knowledge creation. The tension between the liberal arts college and the "modern" research university initiated a process of differentiation that…

Reflects upon the 40-year history of the Conference on College Composition and Communication. Calls upon conference members to "compose themselves," both historically through awareness of those who have studied writing in the past and subjectively through knowledge of those who have taught writing. Identifies characteristics and goals of…

A close reading of two nineteenth-century composition textbook prefaces reveals that teachers of that period attempted to rename and refocus the content and practice of composition to meet the imagined needs of real students, who were also frustrated and struggling. From the perspective of a twentieth-century composition teacher, William Swinton's…

This book is intended to be both a biography of an extraordinary woman and a historical account of events leading to Open Admissions within the City University of New York (CUNY) in 1970, wherein every graduate of a New York City high school was guaranteed a place within the CUNY system. The book profiles Mina Shaugnessy, who devoted her…

Discusses the issues of intimacy in the classroom within the context of the experiences of female writing students at Radcliffe College around the turn of the century. Asserts that students need options and the space to examine and move through their own fears. (PRA)

Offers an overview of changing attitudes towards the place of mechanics in writing instruction, as documented in "College Composition and Communication" over the 50 years of the journal's existence. Argues that the role of formal correctness within each instructor's teaching depends on the purposes, goals, and contexts of each writing…

The current practice and theory of preparing college teachers of writing can benefit greatly by considering the history of writing teacher education as practiced in this country since at least 1894. Harvard University (Cambridge, Massachusetts) offered the first course for new teachers of writing in 1912, and in the early years of this century,…

It is a commonly held assumption that Harvard-trained rhetoricians during the late 19th and early 20th centuries were concerned mainly with superficial mechanical correction, and, further, that they dissociated student writing from any meaningful context and contributed to the division between composition and literature. Howard James Savage was…

Marion Sheridan, President of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) in 1949-50, questioned traditional values, defending or assaulting them as the circumstances of a rapidly changing world deemed necessary. The voice that spoke through her writing was instrumental in modifying English curriculum. She pioneered the use of film in the…