Composition: History & Theory: 1980 - 1989
College English Review, Volume 49, No. 5: 1987 (Review II)
Description
CONTENTS
Patricia BIzzell: Bizzell reviews three recently published books on the testing of writing ability; including a book by Lester Faigley. Two of the books (by Karen L. Greenberg and Edward M. White) target non-specialists and attempt to convince them of the “practical superiority” of writing tests while Faigley’s is a more epistemological exploration of what tests accomplish and what we can really learn from them (578). The data on the “success” of these tests is inconclusive and while White and Greenberg are optimistic about the value of tests, Faigley is much more skeptical. He questions whether the tests actually assess modern composition research or if they simply reify existing social hierarchies. Bizzell wonders if a pluralistic test is possible (one that pleases the academy and the social classes) but concludes that this is the area we should be moving toward if we want these tests to be more useful. She feels that Faigley’s more detailed and theoretical testing methods would provide better results about students and teachers but that they are too difficult for widespread implementation. Insert on “Guidelines of the Workload of the College English Teacher” from the College Section of the NCTE: 1) English faculty members should never be assigned more than 12 hours a week of classroom teaching; 2) No more than 20 students in a writing class; 15 in Remedial or developmental sections. 25 in Lit courses; 3) No faculty member should teach more than 60 writing students a term; 4) Tutoring or Lab work counts as part of the teaching load; 5) No full-time faculty member’s load should be composed exclusively of sections of a single course: 6) No English faculty member should be required to prepare more than three different courses during a single term. James C. Raymond: Raymond, the editor of CE in 1987, explores the history of College English as a journal. He notes that if Northrop Frye feels that literary criticism is “becoming more and more systematic” that College English certainly “is not” (553). He observes that although the thrust of the journal’s concerns have been consistent, there have been three major differences. First, readers are “no longer interested in what were once lively discussions about particular questions of usage and grammar” (553). Second, early articles tended to believe that any English professor could teach English while recent scholarship is rife with complexities and methodologies about what writing is and how we should teach it. The third is a shift in editorial policy. Richard Ohmann announced that CE would “no longer publish critical articles or explications, except for those mainly calculated to have an impact on critical theory, curricular thinking, pedagogy, and so on” (554). CE moved in this direction in an effort “to favor the general and theoretical study over the particular critique” (554). Raymond notes that since there was a move away from articles about literature, the journal has become perceived as a journal exclusively devoted to composition and pedagogy and this highlights a core issue in the English Department, namely, whether or not literature and composition can survive in the same department. Raymond explicitly calls out to writers concerned with literature and remarks that CE “welcomes submissions that raise questions about the nature of literature” (555). Raymond then goes on to analyze the ration of male/female submissions and chart their institutional affiliation. ADDITIONAL TITLES: Reflections on New Historicism by Brook Thomas; Flimnap on the Tightrope; Expanding Opportunities: Academic Success for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students NCTW 1986 Task Force on Racism and Bias in the Teaching of English (Policy); College English: Whence and Whither by James C. Raymond; Literature and Basic Writing: A Bibliographic Survey by Christopher Gould; Poems by Marea Gordett and Stanley Marcus.
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3/14/09