This book contains reports concerning the English curriculum from more than 20 colleges and universities, including Ball State University, Carleton College, University of Chicago, Cornell University, University of Florida, Ohio State University, Rollins College, University of San Francisco, Washington University, and Yale University. Each…

An essay, often called a personal essay, familiar essay, lyric essay, the disjunctive or spiral essay, is a piece of writing which takes its form in the shifts and turns of a particular mind at work. The essay is a piece of writing which pays attention to and sometimes plays with form; often uses images and figures that are familiar with poetry;…

This paper reports on the travails of the writing center at Kutztown University in Pennsylvania. The paper recounts how the center has been forced to move physically several times in the past few years and has battled a budget crunch as well. It explains that, although the English Department has been allocating enough money from its budget to…

Discusses the preparation of English education graduates in general and of those at the University of Washington in particular. (AEA)

Asserts that William Wordsworth's poetry influenced teacher training for British educators and promoted the development of the English Department. Notes several legislative measures that played a role in English curricula. Concludes that current pedagogic studies make academic practice assumptions based on historic precedence dating back to…

Describes the severe challenges and recent hopeful improvements at Thomas Jefferson High School, an inner-city school in Brooklyn, New York. (SR)

Describes how the English department at Willamette University set out to revise the English curriculum as a participant in the MLA-FIPSE English Programs Curriculum Review Project. Shows how the faculty redesigned the curriculum, and shares three important ideas that might be useful to other departments undertaking similar changes. (HB)

Provides an account of a successful staffing initiative at a PhD-granting institution, the University of Pittsburgh. States that the "Fix English" program aimed to improve the educational quality of undergraduate instruction by increasing full-time faculty involvement, correcting workload inequities, and bringing the English department's…

Explores and describes (from the standpoint of a retired department chair) the paradigm change, one of Copernican proportions, that has occurred in English departments from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. Compares Modern Language Association bulletins from 1978 and from 1994. (TB)

This is an interview between Teacher Librarian and Chris Crowe. Chris Crowe's first novel won the International Reading Association's Children's Book Award. He is a fellow professor of YA Literature and a past-president of the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English. Some interview questions include:…

As a special topics course in composition, ENEX 495: "Women, Writing, and Rhetoric" is a program elective for graduate students in the English department, English majors, Gender and Women's Studies students, and a writing-intensive elective for non-majors at The University of Montana, a doctoral granting institution located in the Rocky…

In forming a new curriculum for the English Department at Louisiana State University, the Literature Concentration Subcommittee faced a daunting array of competing demands. How can students gain a perspective on the terrain of literary studies, including canonical and non-canonical texts? How can they experience the rich diversity of the…

Discusses the needs and problems of English departments identified by the MLA's l982 "Report of the Commission on the Future of the Profession." Discusses the "traditional" and "nontraditional" aspects of humanities education, disciplinary and general education, and the political, economic, and intellectual upheavals…

Discusses a system in which English faculty evaluate writing proficiency examinations administered by an education department, including the problems engendered by such a system. (AEA)

A personal memoir of Marjorie Hope Nicolson and the graduate English department she headed at Columbia University in the 1940s and 1950s. (SJL)