Composition: History & Theory: 1950 - 1959
College English, Volume 13, No.4: January 1952
Description
College English 13.4 (Jan. 1952) features a symposium on teaching the research paper, which includes four short articles on the subject. We know from Berlin’s account that this issue appears after the formation of CCCC and after the influence of the general communications course (106). According to Berlin the Cold War had a large effect on the strategies of English departments of this time period, making them suspicious of the collective and more focused on the individual student. Additionally this period saw the rise of New Criticism and Structural Linguistics as emphases within English departments and within the composition course. These were seen as politically safe foci for professors because they avoided social context (109-119).
CONTENTS
Interestingly three of the four titles for the research paper symposium in this issue suggest a collective approach: “An Over-All Class Subject for the Research Paper”; “The Research Paper as a Class Enterprise”; and “The Research Paper: A Co-Operative Approach.” Upon closer examination, however, none of these articles actually promote a collaborative approach to writing the research paper. Two advocate a class topic generated whether from a list of interests from individual students or from an interest of the instructor’s. These class topics actually are then subdivided into very individual research papers, though the class shares their research collectively. The most promising title, “The Research Paper: A Co-Operative Approach,” is about the co-operation of English instructors with librarians to create a research paper program that librarians are intimately involved in structuring.
One article in the symposium stood out for its political emphasis, “A New Kind of Argumentative Term Paper” by Herbert Michaels. Michaels argues that we should turn away from the kind of argument papers he sees proliferating composition courses where students support their own point of view on a topic through selective quote mining in sources, thereby learning nothing of the opposing view. He writes, “The emphasis here seems to have been upon the student’s doing the most effective propaganda job possible” (208). The entire article is concerned with the role of propaganda in the media. Michaels proposes as an alternative to the former approach, a class focused on current events as represented in news media, in which students write four short papers that present and analyze the primary arguments for two sides of a given controversy without asserting a position on the issue (209). The final paper then draws on these previous papers to create an argument that has thoroughly considered and documented the opposing point of view (209). The short papers are reminiscent of Elbow’s believing and doubting game and seem potentially very useful. What stands out the most in this article is not just this method, but the examples Michaels gives at the end of the article of in-class exercises he has prepared to equip students with the analytical skills they will need for the project. He presents twenty different news items to the class on the overhead and leads the class through questions to help them identify the arguments and the flaws within those arguments (210). The four examples he gives of news items he has used are: an editorial suggesting that the present administration be called “the Raw Deal”; “a series of articles rich in fallacious and unfair argument, written on the British medical program”; a book review and a subsequent article quoting the book review our of context in a way that suggests a different meaning; and an article from the Midwest “pointing out that there are many ‘foreign-born’ persons in important federal positions” (210). These examples seem ripe for analysis, though a more thorough discussion of his critical approach in the classroom in guiding students through their analyses is desired. Also interesting to me in this article and in the others I looked at is the emphasis on trying to form an objective point of view that can lead to some sort of rational position on an issue, which of course Berlin would argue is not possible. ADDITIONAL TITLES: “Contemporary Science Fiction”; “A Protest against the James Vogue”; “Wordsworth on Westminster Bridge: Paradox or Harmony?”; “College Spelling”; “Spelling and Pronunciation”; “The Eye, the Ear, and the Misheard Sound”; “Mispronunciation and Misspellings”; “Training Teachers of English”; and “Teaching Listening through Listening-Type Tests.” Interesting in this sweep is the emphasis on listening and pronunciation and its relation to spelling.
Date of Upload
3/14/09