Composition: History & Theory: 1900 - 1919
Textbooks
Description
Robert Connors, in Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and Pedagogy (1997), claims that most textbooks included levels of composition, modes of discourse, and grammatical/mechanical rules by 1900. Things changed in 1910 with the advent of handbooks and workbooks. These became the center of freshman writing courses for several decades. 1900 is also the year which Connors pinpoints as the beginning of The Dark Ages of Composition (1900-1930). While other disciplines were burgeoning, “English departments during that period saw composition as degrading hackwork, an apprenticeship to higher literary studies” (100). There were no composition scholars at the time, so instructors relied entirely on the textbooks they taught for training. Connors asserts that this method of “training” remained more or less the norm until 1950. The one positive thing Connors notes about this time period is the founding of NCTE in 1911 which paved the way for the formation of professional journals in English Studies. Connors sees these journals as integral to the consolidation of the discipline.
Date of Upload
3/13/09