The current version of the draft National Curriculum (1.0.1) remains a document which dis-integrates the subject through its three strands and fails to conceptualise a relationship between these strands. Drawing on curriculum history, I argue that this stands in strong contrast to a curriculum such as the 1971 NSW Syllabus for Years 7-10, which…

Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of language and literature can illuminate the workings of multigenre compositions. Bakhtin's theories of heteroglossia and novelization are applicable because they are not genre dependent. As he says, they reach "beyond the bounds of the novel as genre" to reflect the ways all kinds of written language may…

Discusses the state of humanities instruction in community colleges and offers suggestions for ways to bolster that curriculum form. (FL)

Gorgias' rhetoric can be explained in three parts: his sensory-based but non-empirical epistemology; his definitions of language as inherently deceptive and of "doxa" as the only "knowledge" communicable; and his antithetical style, which reproduces the necessary negotiation of understanding in the world. Gorgias' epistemology…

An examination of the additions, deletions, and revisions of the 2-volume "Norton Anthology of English Literature" (the most popular text used by college teachers) from the 1962 first edition to the 1986 fifth edition, sought to identify those changes which would confirm the editors' stated purposes in the prefaces and to speculate on…

Claims that grammar instruction does not improve written composition have led some teachers to a confident consensus that they do not have to deal with grammar, yet many still firmly believe in teaching it. Grammar instruction (meaning pedagogical or school grammar rather than scientific or linguistic grammar) can be viewed from the metaphorical…

Students tend to think of writing as reporting the topography of their minds and souls guided by the assumptions that reality is "out there," that reality is relatively unproblematical, that the concepts they use are common to everyone and are therefore self-evident, and that they should and can abstract themselves from the processes of the worlds…

Discusses the effects of the computer and telecommunications revolution on the humanities and compares the modes of conception and analysis that are inherent in the computer and in the humanities. (AEA)

Muses on such topics as the importance of teaching students about the craft of poetry and of helping them see that life can turn into literature. (GT)

Views technical writing as a discipline requiring skills basic to communication, with some distinctive elements, including that it is written by assignment and often to specification, is highly situational, is an analytic problem-solving process, and is a "real world" art. (TJ)

The answer to the question, "What's happening to the standards project organized by the International Reading Association (IRA) and the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE)?" is that the project is going forward. Though its federal sponsors rejected it in the fall and winter of 1993-94, the project is continuing under the…

Among the advocates of the "Back to Basics" trend there seems to be little concensus as to what exactly constitutes the "basics." It is clear, however, that what most people mean by "basics" is mechanical skills, punctuation, spelling and grammar. The task of teachers of language is to foster an understanding of how…

Stories consume lives and lives become stories. A unit of study examines the creation of self in autobiographies and biographies looking closely at how we construct a life from the fragments of human experience and memory. This paper looks briefly at the different theoretical perspectives about biography and autobiography, following closely the…

Offers an "inspirational speech" delivered by Harvard professor Cornel West at the 1994 National Council of Teachers of English convention. Discusses ways in which English teachers can help to keep alive the tradition of struggle for decency, dignity, freedom, and democracy. Shares his belief in the significant role English teachers play in…

The fact that technical writing is a form of discourse and not just a craft to be learned for a specific purpose means that it has at least three implications for the structure of writing programs. First, it is a method of writing development that is "you-centered" rather than "I-centered." Second, it is a heuristic for perceiving and organizing…