Heuristics are deeply-held, tacit knowledge structures connected to our feelings. A heuristic study explores a phenomenon crucial to the researcher's self-discovery (Moustakas, 1990). Like me, many undergraduate composition instructors feel both fear and hope at the crossroads of composition and technology. Technology and composition shape one…

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…

Argues that composition cannot be taught apart from reading, that reading means only the reading of great writing, and that the teaching of reading and writing is best handled by people who have studied literature and created some themselves. Offers suggestions for the improvement of the undergraduate English curriculum. (FL)

Reviews the growth of business and technical communication courses as college courses in universities. Documents the move to "professional" communication in English departments. Explains why technical communication dominates "professional" communication. Argues that faculty who teach business communication in business schools…

Presents an interview with Richard Lanham, Professor of English at UCLA, about his wide-ranging career, which has included work in rhetoric and style, composition theory and the teaching of writing, the implications of electronic text, and copyright law in the entertainment business. (SR)

Discusses the need for a reformed English curriculum. (HOD)

Finds sharp and definable differences in faculty attitudes toward and beliefs about the teaching of composition.

Writing in Western culture requires mastery of both rhetorical theory and the expressive writing often promoted in composition studies, however great the conflict between them might be. The tension between these two poles can even be a source of excitement and motivation. Landmark composition studies such as those of James Britton and Janet Emig…

Common approaches to composition teaching are satirized. (JH)

Maynard Mack, Emeritus Sterling Professor of English at Yale, discusses his pioneering work with the oral interpretation of literature in the graduate and undergraduate English classroom, making the point that such oral techniques need not be limited to the drama or speech departments. (Author/SJL)

Offers the opinions of faculty, lecturers, and graduate teaching associates on the use of electronic technology in the teaching of English. Suggests that most faculty members are receptive to considering new ways of enhancing teaching, and that the faculty needs training for this new responsibility. (CR)

Discusses what is wrong with graduate schools in English, including lack of creativity, the irrelevance of much of the training for the doctoral degree, the attention paid to obscure points of literary scholarship, and the emphasis on publishing instead of good teaching. Notes the similarity to criticisms made 45 years ago. (EL)

A speech given a annual meeting of Conference on College Composition and Communication, National Council of Teachers of English (Seattle, Washington, March 19-21, 1970). (Editor/RD)