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Teaching Composition: Where We've Been and Where We're Going

1987; National Council of Teachers of English; Volume: 38; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/357638

1939-9006

Edward P. J. Corbett,

Literacy, Media, and Education

To get a clear view of any scene or activity, one needs a room with a view. It is helpful if the room commands an expansive view-at least on three sides. (The blindside provides a convenient excuse if the viewer fails to note some important feature of the scene.) And if the view is to be truly retrospective and prospective, one cannot be stiff-necked. It takes an ounce of temerity and a pound of arrogance for me to do a survey of the composition scene, because I am not at all confident that I am any more qualified than the next teacher of English to explore the territory. My room with a view has been paid for, as yours has, with a lot of toil and trouble: teaching composition for several years at one or more schools; talking shop with colleagues; listening in on the grapevine; reading the journals and the pertinent books; attending conferences and conventions. But maybe the one experience I have had that most teachers have not had was a six-year tour as the editor of a major composition journal. An editorship sets up a marvelous vantage point from which the view can be as expansive as the one that a forest ranger gets from his mountain-top tower. Even if my eyesight is not 20/20, I can still point out salient features of the landscape to the interested spectator. Despite the myopia of the guide, the survey of the scene, whether retrospective or prospective, can be both fascinating and instructive for the spectator.