Search

The main task of reviewers for scholarly periodicals is to provide a fair reading of a paper, and thereby to help determine its suitability for publication. The reviewer's job is to evaluate the article according to the journal's criteria, most of which are publicly stated. Implicit criteria also exist which stretch, expand, or otherwise change shape to accommodate those highly unconventional, innovative pieces that break the rules. The reviewer has an obligation to serve diverse constituencies impartially: society at large, the profession, the journal, the author of the articles in question, and the referee's personal standards. The reviewers' Hippocratic Oath might read, "I will use my review to help the manuscript according to my ability and judgment, but never with a view to injury and wrongdoing. Above all, my aim is to help, or at least to do no harm." (RS)

The process paradigm for teaching writing has been the dominant curricular model for the past 20 years, but by anatomizing various dimensions of this paradigm, it becomes clear why it, like any other paradigmatic model, will not last forever. To be adopted and become normative, any new paradigm has to appeal to salient features of the prevailing intellectual, social, and political climate. The process paradigm has become embedded and promulgated in the theory, research, and textbooks that dominate the field because it satisfies a number of dimensions lacking in the old, current-traditional paradigm. However, every paradigm is heavily value-laden; as values and priorities change, paradigms must change to accommodate them. An examination of these dimensions (intellectual, pedagogical, political, philosophical, social, ethnographic, psychological, gender, professional, and economic) demonstrates how the process paradigm satisfies values and priorities and delineates potentially disruptive influences. An educational model is unstable because the population it represents is not static, and the very dimensions listed above reside in a constant state of flux. When the process paradigm is supplanted, as it inevitably must be, its replacement will embed and accommodate many of the same principles that the process paradigm has accommodated so comfortably. Certainly, whatever new paradigms arise, they will be expected to fulfill enduring, value-laden national goals, existing, necessarily, not only for the individual's, but also for the nation's own good. (Thirty-eight references are appended.) (HB)

This essay identifies and illustrates a number of significant features that, in combination, make literary biography a distinct and recognizable genre. Among these are considerations of the various aspects of the composition of literary works, such as sources of inspiration, authors' motives and methods in transforming life into art, and similarities and discrepancies between fact and fiction. Literary biographers relate literary criticism to their subject's life in diverse ways-sometimes for exegesis, sometimes to show the style of a literary mind or personality, and sometimes to find analogues between lives and works. Literary biography also shows the author's art in the perspective of his or her lifetime, illustrating the mechanical aspects of composition and, less often, the creative aspects. Finally, literary temperament, the placement of the author and the author's works in historical and intellectual milieus, and the provision of the particulars of publication and bibliography are also goals of the literary biographer. (KS)

To speak, write, and react to language with awareness is to live at least somewhat more fully than to be oblivious to the manifold nuances and potentialities of language. With this idea in mind, the rationales, strategies, and implications of three language-related assignments for advanced composition are presented. The first assignment asks student writers to identify and interpret ten examples of political language (in the Orwellian sense), paying careful attention to stale imagery, pretentious diction, imprecise meanings, and wordiness. The second assignment asks students to select eight major symbols and to identify their implications. The third assignment, in which students report on an incident or present a character sketch, focuses on language as a combination of interpretive and manipulative devices. The purpose of these writing assignments is to raise consciousness and increase awareness. (RB)

In order to promote professionalism and transform novice teaching assistants into capable instructors, the University of New Mexico has established a required course in "Teaching Composition." The course attempts to define institutional and departmental goals, and explore such issues in class management as organization, discipline, motivation, and plagarism. Other basics in the training of TAs include the orientation toward professional publishing, survey of major topic areas in the language arts, and the study of research on teaching methods, composition, and literature. Additionally, a section on dialects explores the implications of language diversity. Feedback for TAs is provided by direct classroom observation by an independent expert and anonymous evaluations by students. Self-evaluation by the assistants is also stressed, and an attempt is made to provide an environment within the department that encourages and acknowledges their efforts. (KS)

This paper points out that students who earn a Ph.D. in English in a conventional literary curriculum are often totally ignorant of linguistics, rhetoric, and current research in the teaching and learning of composition. Yet such knowledge is invaluable for many reasons. Graduate students can become more accurate critics of their own writing, if they can make use of some of the tools of linguistic or rhetorical analysis. They can become more skillful literary critics and better teachers of both literature and writing. Furthermore, fully one-half of the teaching jobs currently available at the college level include the teaching of composition; therefore, at least one-half of the English doctoral students who plan to teach in four-year colleges and universities ought to have some formal instruction in composition. The paper lists the aims of a graduate concentration in composition, both for M.A. and Ph.D. candidates, and makes a few general suggestions for curriculum requirements for a minor or major in composition. Finally, the paper examines ways in which staffing can be provided for such programs and discusses other resources which the programs might draw on. (GW)

This paper is concerned with determining the influences of biographers' gender on the content of biographies of women. The following questions are addressed: Do some treatments of subjects produce feminist or sexist biographies? What are the principal characteristics of both forms? Which, if any, of these features combine to result in identifiable subgenres? Materials analyzed include biographies of Charlotte Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Emily Dickinson, George Eliot, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Angelina and Sarah Grimke. Comparisons are made with biographies of Keats, Shelley, Hugo, and Disraeli. A different time period is represented by the biographies of Mary, Queen of Scots, and Oliver Cromwell. Definition of the differences between sexist and feminist biographies includes authors' treatment of such factors as physical appearance, social roles, and psychology and motivation. It is concluded that the sex of the biographer is not the necessary determinant of the biography's orientation; both sexist and feminist biographies may be written by either men or women. (KS)

This study investigates the relationship between college students' learning of grammar and mechanics and their ability to compose. A random sample of students enrolled in the University of New Mexico's freshman English program was tested during three semesters. Several questions were addressed: Were the courses doing what they purported to do? What were the trends in levels of competence in grammar, mechanics, and writing? What were the connections between the learning of grammar and the ability to write competently? An analysis of test scores and judges' global ratings of students' essays revealed that, past a certain level of instruction, students did not appear to make futher progress; this trend manifested itself sooner with the learning of grammar and mechanics than with the actual production of writing. In addition, it was found that the acquisition of grammar and mechanics skills was only weakly correlated with improvement in writing, and then principally at the beginning of the students' college careers. (KS)