This textbook is an elementary-school English grammar course. Since this book is designed for the pupil rather than for the teacher, all suggestions as to the teaching of English grammar have been conveyed rather by implication than by specific recommendation. The text itself is, however, designed to indicate a general method of presentation,…

Discusses the impact of the humanistic revolution in education of the 1960s on the English classroom of the 1970s. (DD)

Presents a perspective on the teaching of literature from the 1940s to the 1970s. (DD)

Describes the evolution in techniques of teaching spelling in America from 1642 to 1900 and reviews several popular spelling texts used during this period. (DD)

Describes the evolution and impact of the "English Language Arts" series published by the National Council of Teachers of English in the 1950s. (DD)

States that when writers use hypertext to produce a fictional narrative, the result is interactive hyperfiction. Charts what is known about electronic nonlinear narrative: origins, literary precursors, and distinctive features. Explores its potential in the English classroom. Examines some of the difficulties associated with its use as well as the…

Argues that, although Matthew Arnold was instrumental in launching English literature in Britain as a proper school subject, he purposively limited the extent of literature's educational value. (MG)

Examines English teaching practices in American rural schools from 1900-40, emphasizing schools in Iowa. Discusses the Country Life Movement, which proposed significant reforms for rural education and rural living. Surveys English teaching practices undertaken in its spirit. Concludes with an assessment of the movement and a discussion of its…

Explores reading as discursive practice, assuming that all readings are produced by particular groups to represent their specific interests. Constructs a reading of English education over the past century, focusing on a humanist conception of individualism promoted through personal growth pedagogy, and on the shift toward a poststructuralist view…

Describes the genesis and history of the Bryn Mawr Summer School for Women Workers from 1921-38. Discovers in that school's methodology an antecedent to today's feminist and progressive pedagogies. Looks at the autobiographical narratives of participants to analyze the development of powerful critical voices. (HB)

Argues that medieval popular literacy can provide a crucial link for understanding alternative literacies. Claims that medieval practices explain some contemporary literacy practices, especially those outside the academy. (HB)

Identifies and clarifies the difficulties encountered in the effort to revive rhetoric as a modern academic discipline. Discusses briefly the institutional histories of speech communication and composition studies. Describes a new rhetoric (the "current-traditional rhetoric") that began to dominate universities in the late 19th century and has…

Examines the sentence-based pedagogies that arose in composition during the 1960s and 1970s (the generative rhetoric of Francis Christensen, imitation exercises, and sentence-combining) and attempts to discern why these three pedagogies have been so completely elided within contemporary composition studies. Concludes that this erasure of sentence…

Discusses the work and contributions of Lou LaBrant, who became president of the National Council of Teachers of English in 1954, and who was one of the foremost progressive practitioners of reading and writing instruction. Discusses her research, her teaching, her experience, and her lifelong insistence that the writing curriculum had to be…

Based on the idea that an individual cannot understand literature, philosophy, or rhetoric without knowing the field's historical content, this book traces the evolution of the growing and ever-changing field of composition/rhetoric through numerous schools of thought, including Platonism, Aristoteleanism, New Criticism, and the current…