A symposium in the November 2006 issue of "College English" addresses the question, "What should college English be?" In this article, the author presents his answer to this question--it should be a functional approach to English studies. By English studies he means everything that is done in English departments. Most English departments teach…

Offers a utopian vision of what the place of rhetoric should be in a department that thinks of itself as literary. Argues that a Ph.D. in English that encompasses both literature and rhetoric works because it is really a degree in rhetoric. (TB)

Carolyn Miller's oft-cited "Humanistic Rationale for Technical Writing," published in 1979, tries to give technical communication faculty more cultural capital in English departments controlled by literature professors. Miller replaces a positivistic emphasis in technical communication pedagogy with rhetoric. She shows how technical knowledge is…

Contends that rhetorical study is the key to the integration of reading and writing in the college English department and discusses problems created by pigeonholing literature by periods and genres. (DD)

Argues that the antagonism which exists between rhetoricians and literary scholars derives partly from the disciplines' differing approaches to the act of writing. Suggests that literature and composition can most clearly be seen as compatible arts within the framework of the theory and history of rhetoric. (MS)

Encourages professional dialogue to establish correspondent interests among college English faculty who have taken positions in defense of the teaching of either rhetoric or literature. (AEA)

This paper chronologically presents a history of curricular development dating from the inception of King's College in 1754 through Columbia University's departmental offerings in 1953. The comprehensive study of curriculums is initiated with a review of the significance of rhetoric during the early period. Systematic examination of the growth of…

This document reviews some of the facets of the Department of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The Department has a long tradition of involvement with high school teaching and high school teachers. The scheduling and programming activities of the Department are complex inasmuch as a range of courses must be made available…