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last.updated 9.16.07

Responses to Harvard Composition

Purpose

We will examine the rise of the composition course at Harvard and consider how it responds to the rhetoric of the Common Sense Realists, as well as influences some current practices typical of the composition classroom.

Before Class

• Read Buck pp. 241-251 [Origins]
• Read Scott "What the West Wants in Preparatory School" [School Review 17.1]
• Read Berlin [WI], Chapters 4-8 (pp. 35-92)
• Submit PAB #3 to the Blackboard Discussion Board by the beginning of class

FreeWrite

In the Harvard Reports, high schools are blamed for the "terrible" writing incoming students produce on their entrance exams. This argument resonates with a commonplace among college composition instructors. But as Scott suggests, the colleges' meddling in high school pedagogy often contributes to these problems. What suggestions do you have for bridging this divide between high school English and college English? And do you think rhetoric can play a role in building these bridges, or is it an obstacle that needs to be overcome?

Questions and Discussion (by Miriam Dufer)

• Gertrude Buck’s theory of assigning a composition task “on a real occasion” (245), presents a student that will write based on his/her own experience to an audience that is interested in the experience. Is Buck’s assertion that rhetorical standard will automatically be met by this method plausible? Is prior knowledge/training in the rhetorical standard a necessity for this method to work?
  
• Both Buck (246) and Berlin (42) describe rhetoric as a social construction. In what ways, if any, can we be “concerned with the role of discourse in the public domain, centering on the place of communication in modern democracy?”
  
• According to Berlin’s argument of Emerson as a Romantic Rhetor (51), language is crucial in creating meaning. If language must be metaphoric, what is the relationship between Composition as Applied Rhetoric and Poetry?
  
• The Harvard Reports (61) express that basic writing skills are the responsibility of the lower schools and that colleges should be more concerned with advanced skills. Harvard increased its entrance standards and many colleges followed suit. If basic writing skills are learned in the lower schools, how concerned if at all should teachers of composition be with the mechanics of basic writing?
  
• Scott brings up the issue of students narrowly preparing for college entrance exams and missing the broad range of English topics available. As this article was published in 1909, his assertion can be applied to students today. What is the impact if any on the English education pedagogy of today? Will this narrow preparation lead to the type of students discussed in the Harvard Reports?

Conference Papers and Presentations

During the last hour of class, I will provide some tips on writing conference papers and doing confernece presentations (see presentation)