New Perspectives on Teaching Composition

Author(s): Albert R. Kitzhaber

Source: College English, Vol. 23, No. 6 (Mar., 1962), pp. 440-444
Published by: National Council of Teachers of English
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/373207
Accessed: 08-06-2016 14:23 UTC

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

National Council of Teachers of English is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend
access to College English

This content downloaded from 155.69.24.171 on Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:23:16 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 440 COLLEGE ENGLISH
In so far as time permits, the instructor
will select one of these systems for more
detailed treatment-the choice will be his.
Most will no doubt select structuralist
grammar, but at least two of the instruc-
tors will concentrate on generative gram-
mar. I would like to attend one of those
two courses myself.
During the week devoted to linguistic
variety and the problem of usage, the
course will attempt to make three points:
1. The concept of variety is basic to
linguistic study, both synchronic and
diachronic.
2. Varieties of language are recog-
nized by differences in sounds, forms,
syntax, and vocabulary.
3. The factors on which varieties de-
pend are so complex in their interre-
lationships that any analysis involves
over-simplification. Nevertheless, some
analyses exist that may be used with due
caution.
Linguistic variety of three sorts-
regional, social, and functional or stylistic
-will be briefly dealt with, and the ques-
tion of preferred or standard usage will
be viewed in relation to the complexities
of distribution inevitable in a language
as widely spoken as English is. Time
will not permit dealing with numerous
detailed points of usage; the instructor
will aim instead at equipping each teacher
with the information and philosophy he
needs in order to be his own judge of
such points.
New Perspectives on Teaching
Composition
ALBERT R. KITZHABER
I find myself faced at the outset with
the awkward necessity for explaining
Author of many essays on composition and
rhetoric, Mr. Kitzhaber is presently in charge
of a special study of student writing at Dart-
mouth,.
This content downloaded from 155.69.24.171 on Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:23:16 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
The final week of the course will
introduce the concept of linguistic
change and illustrate it by reference to
samples of English from the principal
periods of its history. The incidence of
change in the sound system, the gram-
mar, the vocabulary, and the semantics
of English will all be looked at, though
again the time will be too short to permit
much study of detail. The emphasis will
be on the general notion that change
in all aspects of language is inevitable,
gradual, and systematic.
All of this sounds like a pretty large
order to occupy no more than one-third
of the time of a six-week institute. Miss
White has already told you what will
be going on concomitantly in the lit-
erature institute, and when Mr. Kitzhaber
has added the program in composition,
it may seem to you that the teachers will
need to take a year off to recover from
the institute. But the instructors who
made up the language syllabus and who
will be teaching it next summer are
well aware that to fill out in detail the
outline they have presented would take
many times the available time. Their
aim will instead be to present what
Jerome Bruner would call the structure
of the subject, to direct the teachers
toward further study-a full bibliography
is an important part of the syllabus-and
above all to move them to a new point
of view from which they can see their
native language in a new and fascinating
perspective.
why we in the composition group did
not do as we were told and produce a
course in composition. Instead, we pro-
duced two courses; and it was only
through a happy combination of good-
will, persistence, and some fancy group
 NEW PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING COMPOSITION 441
dynamics that we didn't produce half
a dozen. The explanation is not that we
were so much more prolific of ideas
than the literature group or the language
group, or that planning a single course
taxed our powers so slightly that we
went ahead and planned a second just
to use up the rest of our time. The
trouble was simply that we could not
agree on one course. We started out, in
fact, with almost as many courses as
there were participants. By the end of
the first week we had only four to deal
with, by the end of the second week
only three, and by the middle of the
last week the two that we finally pre-
sented to the Commission. The division
of the group was admirably balanced:
on ten campuses next summer one of
the courses will be taught; on the re-
maining ten, the other.
Though we prepared two courses in
composition, we believe that both will
do the job equally well. Both, that is,
will do as much as can reasonably be
hoped for, in the short time available, to
help high school teachers do a better
job of teaching composition. Although
the courses proceed by somewhat dif-
ferent routes toward this goal, they both
start from the same two basic premises.
The first is that the best way to increase
the teachers' understanding of the writing
process, make them more perceptive
analysts and critics of writing, and en-
able them to get better writing from
their students is to concentrate on the
teachers themselves as writers and thus
show them at first hand the nature of
the problems faced by any writer,
whether student or professional. The
second premise is that composition, as
regarded in these two courses, is not
just a practical skill, not a mere bag
of tricks, but instead an important way
to order experience, to discover ideas
and render them more precise, and to
give them effective utterance. It is in-
timately related to thought itself. Con-
sidered in this light, composition is a
This content downloaded from 155.69.24.171 on Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:23:16 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
liberal study, lying at the heart of any
rounded scheme of education.
Now let me describe the two courses.
The first, which I shall call Course I,
shows a conscious attempt to use some
of the insights that have proved success-
ful in teaching literature and creative
writing, applying them here to the writ-
ing and analysis of expository prose.
The course is focused on the problems
implicit in the act of writing, and groups
these under three heads which are said
to comprise the "limits of expression."
One of these is the "limits of knowl-
edge": what a writer says and how he
says it are obviously affected by how
much he knows about his subject and
how accessible his knowledge is to him.
Another is the "limits of language": as a
system of abstractions, language imposes
restrictions both on what the writer is
able to discover and on what he is able to
communicate. The third limitation is
called "voice," by which is meant the
particular identity or speaking voice that
a writer creates for himself whenever
he composes his thoughts in words. This
concept, which embraces such consid-
erations as audience, purpose, and situa-
tion, is intended to make clear the per-
vading influence of the specific social
context on all discourse and to emphasize
the ways in which this context deter-
mines matters of usage, syntax, and struc-
ture. The course is consistently inductive,
directing the attention of the teachers
constantly toward examples of writing,
usually their own, and deriving necessary
principles from practice in analysis and
composition.
Course I is organized in five units. The
first of these consists of several exercises
in description intended to clarify for the
teachers the notion of the "limits of
expression," particularly the importance
of "voice." Unit two is based on a study
of Plato's Phaedrus, both to show how
a great writer manages the problem of
voice and to introduce the teachers to
a discourse on rhetoric which, though
 442 COLLEGE ENGLISH
not a formal or systematic treatment,
nevertheless touches on nearly all of the
central problems with which rhetoric
must be concerned. The third unit re-
quires the teachers to analyze numerous
short passages of expository prose from
various periods so as to clarify further
the implications of "limits of expression"
and, by differentiating between older
and contemporary prose, to lead the
teachers to an understanding of the
characteristics of modern English prose
style. In the fourth unit the teachers
return to the Phaedrus to consider Plato's
argument for the use of dialectic as a
means of discovering truth and to study
the way in which Socrates employs
some of the elements of logic in his two
speeches. The unit concludes with a
study of the uses of logic in persuasion.
The last unit, which deals with the
limitations of language, impresses on the
teachers that although there is "a radical
discontinuity between language and ex-
perience," the writer need not despair
at having to use so imperfect an instru-
ment to order and communicate his
perception of reality. Rather, a knowl-
edge of the limitations as well as the
resources of language is necessary if
language is to be used responsibly.
Throughout the course the teachers
write papers of analysis and criticism
based on assigned reading and on their
own compositions. Toward the end
several papers are assigned in cooperation
with the instructors of the language and
literature courses.
The second course proceeds from the
assumption that, although writing is a
complex intellectual activity involving
choices among innumerable possibilities,
it can nevertheless be systematically an-
alyzed. The course assumes also that a
profitable way to approach the study of
expository writing is to consider the
component structures of prose-the
whole, the paragraph, the sentence, the
word-as these are shaped and controlled
by the varying demands of four "el-
This content downloaded from 155.69.24.171 on Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:23:16 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
ements": the writer's own identity, his
subject, his purpose, and his audience.
There is no intent to suggest that partic-
ular writers necessarily compose in so
orderly a fashion. Rather, the purpose is
to help the teachers identify the prin-
ciples of expository prose and the cir-
cumstances that control their application
-this in the belief that the teachers' own
ability to write will be enhanced and
that they will become better initiators
and critics of student writing.
Like Course I, this course requires that
the teachers read and analyze selections
of expository prose-usually complete
essays, however, rather than isolated pas-
sages-and write frequent papers based
on the work of the course. The approach
again is largely inductive, with most of
the principles being derived first from
analysis and discussion of prose selections
and student writing, then checked
against formal statements of rhetorical
theory.
The course outline consists of six units.
The first, called "The Activity of Writ-
ing," tries by reading, discussion, and a
writing assignment, to get the teachers
to clarify their notions of what writing
consists of, what principles underlie it,
and what circumstances condition it.
They are led to realize that good writing
does not come from the mechanical ap-
plication of rules but instead that it is
the result of a series of choices involving
the demands of writer, subject, purpose,
and audience. The second unit takes up
organization of the whole composition,
with particular attention to the ways in
which patterns of organization are deter-
mined by the writer's purpose, his knowl-
edge of his subject, and his awareness
of the audience for whom he is writing.
Included in this unit is some considera-
tion of the elements of logic as they bear
on the organization of expository prose.
The next three units deal successively
with the rhetoric of the paragraph, of the
sentence, and of the word, in each case
emphasizing how the writer's choices
 NEW PERSPECTIVES ON TEACHING COMPOSITION 443
among the myriad forms and combina-
tions at his disposal are governed by the
four elements already mentioned. In
each unit the teachers write at least one
analytical paper intended to sharpen
their awareness of the principles being
discussed. The final unit recapitulates the
work of the course by requiring a full-
scale rhetorical analysis of several pieces
of expository prose.
So much for a description of the two
courses. Now let me call your attention
to several implications of our work last
summer.
First, the courses I have described take
an unaccustomed view of the importance
of composition teaching. I think no one
will wish to dispute me when I say that
most college English departments regard
the teaching of composition as less in-
teresting, less important, less respectable
academically than the teaching of lit-
erature. For example, one might suspect
that it was not entirely an accident that
all twenty of the people appointed by
the universities to the literature group
last summer were college professors of
English, whereas four of the people
appointed to the composition group were
high school teachers and two more were
specialists in English education. Let me
say at once that our group was the
richer for the contributions of these six
excellent teachers; we were fortunate to
have them among our number. My point
is merely that one might uncharitably
deduce from this circumstance that the
twenty English departments were un-
willing to entrust the teaching of lit-
erature next summer to alien hands but
felt no such compunction about the
teaching of composition.
The attitude of college English de-
partments toward the teaching of com-
position has been influenced by their
attitude toward freshman English, which
on most campuses is considered a "serv-
ice" course, one that the English depart-
ment teaches, often reluctantly, as a
favor to other departments. The course
This content downloaded from 155.69.24.171 on Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:23:16 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
is thought of as purely utilitarian: stu-
dents are to be taught to write well
enough so they will not disgrace them-
selves or exasperate their other teachers.
It aims at a minimum standard of ac-
complishment. It is a "skills" course.
The institute courses in composition,
however, are based on a different view.
They both assume that a course in com-
position, properly managed, is liberal,
not merely utilitarian. It helps the stu-
dent to organize and understand the
world of his perceptions, to commu-
nicate his view of reality to others. The
service concept of composition teaching
is barely three-quarters of a century old,
dating from the first appearance of
courses in freshman English. The notion
that composition instruction offers a
humane educational experience goes back
more than two thousand years, to the
birth of rhetoric as an academic dis-
cipline. The courses planned at Ann
Arbor last summer affirm that composi-
tion instruction belongs in the rhetorical
tradition.
But, although many college English
departments have been scornful of com-
position teaching, we should not fail to
note the significance of the fact that one
or the other of these composition courses
will be offered for graduate credit in
English at twenty universities next sum-
mer. The offering of these courses under
such conditions would seem to mark an
acceptance by the twenty English de-
partments of their responsibility to pre-
pare high school teachers to teach com-
position with the same expertness that
they are expected to bring to the teach-
ing of literature. Most college English
departments have not until now partic-
ularly distinguished themselves by their
eagerness to offer such instruction. Yet
at the same time they have not wearied
of abusing the high schools for failing
to do a better job of teaching students
to write, or of lamenting the necessity
for having to teach the rudiments of
 444 COLLEGE ENGLISH
composition in the freshman year of
college.
This is not the occasion to debate the
continued existence of freshman com-
position. But if college English depart-
ments are weary of teaching it in its
present form and at its present level, it
seems obvious that the only way to get
rid of it or to transform it into some-
thing more nearly of collegiate grade is
to make it possible for composition to be
taught substantially better in the lower
schools. Raising salaries and hiring lay
readers and reducing the size of classes
may help, but such measures are no
substitute for increased professional com-
petence. If college English departments
do not give prospective high school
teachers the right courses to equip them
to teach composition expertly, then who
will? Shall the job remain in the hands
of professors of language arts and Eng-
lish methods? If we find fault with much
of this kind of instruction, we should
bear in mind that our own negligence
has made it necessary: when those who
presumably know most about the subject
decline to teach it, someone else must
try.
Finally, although those of us who
worked on the composition courses last
summer think that we planned good
courses that will do the job expected of
them, none of us would argue that they
are as good as they might be. Their
main weakness is that, like nearly all
courses in composition, they depend
heavily on the particular biases of the
people who planned them. Other teachers
might have prepared quite different
courses. For example, in neither course
is much attention paid to logic. Neither
has anything to say about semantics,
except incidentally. Neither deals direct-
ly with the communication process as
such. Neither considers oral discourse.
(A reprint pamphlet of the three articles on "New Perspectives" may be ob-
tained from NCTE, 508 South Sixth Street, Champaign, Illinois, at the special
price of $.35 each or three copies for $1.00.)
This content downloaded from 155.69.24.171 on Wed, 08 Jun 2016 14:23:16 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
Yet these things are related in varying
degrees to writing and the teaching of
writing, and a different group of partici-
pants might well have emphasized or
even built courses around one or more
of them.
Why is it that courses in composition
tend to be so highly individualized? One
reason, quite clearly, is that writing is
an art, and there is more than one way
to cultivate skill in it. But another reason
may be that we need to know a great
deal more about the writing process and
the teaching of writing. We need fifteen
or twenty years of the same kind of in-
tense activity by bright minds that has
recently benefited the study of language
and the study of literature. We need, in
short, a comprehensive modem theory
of discourse.
In view of the vast amount of time,
money, and effort that is annually in-
vested in the teaching of English com-
position in this country, it is striking
that so few English teachers have felt
impelled to do research on the writing
process and the teaching of writing. A
great deal of research has been done,
but nearly always by professors of Edu-
cation and their graduate students, people
whose major interest is not English. It
is time that English teachers turn their
attention to these matters, for no one
else is so well qualified or has so direct
an obligation. And now, with research
funds available for exactly this kind of
inquiry, through Commissioner McMur-
rin's "Project English," the opportunities
are at hand. It would be a signal achieve-
ment for the Commission on English if,
as one result of its program, more college
English teachers were persuaded to take
advantage of these opportunities. The
gain to our profession, and to the young
people whom we teach, would be great.