Teaching service courses such as the first year composition courses and an introduction to literature is often a primary mission for English departments on campuses in the United States. Sometimes specific departments request specialized additional English classes such as Writing for Business, basic grammar courses, composition courses focused for…

Presenting prospective teachers with theories that inform them of multiple readerships will help them to make informed decisions about what to read with their students and with their own children, and it will help them gain insight into the forces that are upon young children and adolescents because of societal pressure like the control and…

This article addresses the issue of basic writing, demonstrating how one university's basic writing program acts as a steward of writing. The assumption that basic writers only consume resources rather than contribute to academic excellence is rejected. What links the author responses to this issue is a publication of student writing entitled…

Discussions of English department identity and mission more often center on the undergraduate major curriculum than on classes for general-studies and other non-major students. In such courses, though, educators have an opportunity to touch the intellectual lives of far more people than they do in courses for majors. The author argues in this…

Urges that English departments can help university administrators rediscover the many contributions their faculties and courses can make to the institution at large. (MM)

Instead of being encouraged to act in a professional manner, graduate students are continually reminded of their professional inferiority by the English department. (HOD)

English departments must become involved in the training of teachers of writing at every level rather than concentrating exclusively on literary scholarship. (HOD)

Reviews current department efforts to emphasize the service functions of English. Suggests that the search for students must be tempered with the demand for quality in instruction and performance, whether the pursuit be of literacy or of literature. (MM)