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Composition In The University: Historical and Polemical Essays
Book by Crowley, Sharon
- GenresAcademic
240 pages, Hardcover
First published May 28, 1998
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November 17, 2013
Sharon Crowley’s 1998 book Composition in the University: Historical and Polemical Essays is a rhetorical text about composition, with Crowley ultimately making an argument for the restoration of rhetoric in universities’ first-year composition (FYC) classrooms.
Crowley is forthcoming about the book’s argumentative nature, setting up her project as an ideological examination of composition’s own ideological origins and development rather than an objective historical account. The early pages of the book establish two key aspects of Crowley’s argument. First is her “fundamental assumption … that the humanist approach to the first-year course is not the best approach to teaching composition” (13). The problematic grafting of humanist values onto composition in the latter’s early days, as well as the continuing influence of that grafting, is a refrain repeated by Crowley throughout her book. Second is her claim that “the time has come to reflect seriously on the worth of the universal requirement [of FYC]” (10), which, depending on the reader’s convictions, might serve as either the specter or the promise hanging over the entire text.
The historical portion of the text comprises its second through ninth chapters, and both borrows from and builds on James Berlin’s and Robert J. Connors’ historical accounts of composition. Crowley recounts modern FYC’s emergence at Harvard, an emergence grounded in crises of literacy and values rhetorically manufactured by such Ivy instructors as Adams Sherman Hill following the postbellum broadening of access to higher education. The perceived need to pass on and maintain the ethical, aesthetic, and linguistic traditions of Western civilization via literature led Hill and his allies to create “Freshman English.” Crowley argues “that the invention of Freshman English enabled the creation of English studies” (59), as well as the subordination of composition to literature. As the American university system sought to adopt the German research ideal, composition was construed as a content-less discipline, any rhetorical education subordinated to the humanist project of exposing students to Great Books (and regulating students’ grammar and syntax).
The ever-increasing need for FYC courses, Crowley notes, led to the recruitment of part-timers and graduate students as composition instructors. These new instructors were frequently met with poor working conditions: inadequate facilities, low salaries, little or no benefits, and minimal cultural capital. The class divide between literature and composition became increasingly entrenched during the early twentieth century, with lit becoming the purview of research-oriented tenured and tenure-track faculty, and FYC the drudgework of those instructors at the bottom of the university teaching hierarchy.
Crowley’s extended consideration of Norman Foerster, a University of Iowa English professor who waged an extensive battle against his institution’s implementation of a universal “basic skills” writing course in the 1940s, is an especially interesting case study. Her depiction of Foerster’s doomed humanist crusade is followed by a meditation on the effects of watered-down Deweyan pragmatism (i.e. “basic skills”) on World War II-era educational philosophy and pedagogy. The armed forces’ demanded communication courses for officers, leading to the mingling of composition with communication departments, and the postwar GI Bill led to an unprecedented influx of new college students. These developments necessitated more FYC instructors, which universities afforded by spreading the resources for these instructors ever more thinly.
Following all this, Crowley sees the emergence of process pedagogy in the 1970s as a mixed blessing. She acknowledges that process pedagogy was noteworthy for finally establishing students’ composing practices as a research subject for compositionists, for reintroducing rhetoric—especially rhetorical invention—as a content base for FYC courses, and for gaining comp and its practitioners some measure of disciplinary and institutional clout. She laments, however, the quick “appropriat[ion]” of process pedagogy by current-traditionalism, a non-rhetorical pedagogical approach far more concerned with grammatical correctness than argumentation or invention (211).
Current-traditionalism, along with humanism, is Crowley’s primary punching bag as she shifts from the historical to the “polemical” portion of her book. Her final arguments, however, have implications beyond a critique of current-traditionalism. Crowley argues that the only way for composition to overcome its menial status is the elimination of the universal requirement of FYC. Noting widespread conservative resistance to The University of Texas at Austin’s attempted 1990 reinvention of FYC—E 306, centered on social issues via American legal discourse—she claims composition studies’ subjugation to and tacit forwarding of the university’s broader institutional agenda is inevitable so long as FYC is required. The course can only be unmoored from servility if it is also unmoored from universality. (It is worth noting that she forwards this position in a section entitled “A Modest Proposal,” and that this section’s Swiftian namesake proposes a radical, ironic, undesirable solution only necessary because of larger systemic problems—a connection probably not lost on Crowley.)
Near the end of the book, Crowley puts forth the argument mentioned in this review’s introduction: A call for composition instructors to look to classical rhetorical theory as a model for the subject matter of the de-universalized FYC course. Unlike humanism and current-traditionalism, which purport to know what students need regardless of what students have to say, classical rhetorical theory provides a flexible, socially aware approach to composition and argument much more germane to Crowley’s vision of the first-year course.
Crowley is forthcoming about the book’s argumentative nature, setting up her project as an ideological examination of composition’s own ideological origins and development rather than an objective historical account. The early pages of the book establish two key aspects of Crowley’s argument. First is her “fundamental assumption … that the humanist approach to the first-year course is not the best approach to teaching composition” (13). The problematic grafting of humanist values onto composition in the latter’s early days, as well as the continuing influence of that grafting, is a refrain repeated by Crowley throughout her book. Second is her claim that “the time has come to reflect seriously on the worth of the universal requirement [of FYC]” (10), which, depending on the reader’s convictions, might serve as either the specter or the promise hanging over the entire text.
The historical portion of the text comprises its second through ninth chapters, and both borrows from and builds on James Berlin’s and Robert J. Connors’ historical accounts of composition. Crowley recounts modern FYC’s emergence at Harvard, an emergence grounded in crises of literacy and values rhetorically manufactured by such Ivy instructors as Adams Sherman Hill following the postbellum broadening of access to higher education. The perceived need to pass on and maintain the ethical, aesthetic, and linguistic traditions of Western civilization via literature led Hill and his allies to create “Freshman English.” Crowley argues “that the invention of Freshman English enabled the creation of English studies” (59), as well as the subordination of composition to literature. As the American university system sought to adopt the German research ideal, composition was construed as a content-less discipline, any rhetorical education subordinated to the humanist project of exposing students to Great Books (and regulating students’ grammar and syntax).
The ever-increasing need for FYC courses, Crowley notes, led to the recruitment of part-timers and graduate students as composition instructors. These new instructors were frequently met with poor working conditions: inadequate facilities, low salaries, little or no benefits, and minimal cultural capital. The class divide between literature and composition became increasingly entrenched during the early twentieth century, with lit becoming the purview of research-oriented tenured and tenure-track faculty, and FYC the drudgework of those instructors at the bottom of the university teaching hierarchy.
Crowley’s extended consideration of Norman Foerster, a University of Iowa English professor who waged an extensive battle against his institution’s implementation of a universal “basic skills” writing course in the 1940s, is an especially interesting case study. Her depiction of Foerster’s doomed humanist crusade is followed by a meditation on the effects of watered-down Deweyan pragmatism (i.e. “basic skills”) on World War II-era educational philosophy and pedagogy. The armed forces’ demanded communication courses for officers, leading to the mingling of composition with communication departments, and the postwar GI Bill led to an unprecedented influx of new college students. These developments necessitated more FYC instructors, which universities afforded by spreading the resources for these instructors ever more thinly.
Following all this, Crowley sees the emergence of process pedagogy in the 1970s as a mixed blessing. She acknowledges that process pedagogy was noteworthy for finally establishing students’ composing practices as a research subject for compositionists, for reintroducing rhetoric—especially rhetorical invention—as a content base for FYC courses, and for gaining comp and its practitioners some measure of disciplinary and institutional clout. She laments, however, the quick “appropriat[ion]” of process pedagogy by current-traditionalism, a non-rhetorical pedagogical approach far more concerned with grammatical correctness than argumentation or invention (211).
Current-traditionalism, along with humanism, is Crowley’s primary punching bag as she shifts from the historical to the “polemical” portion of her book. Her final arguments, however, have implications beyond a critique of current-traditionalism. Crowley argues that the only way for composition to overcome its menial status is the elimination of the universal requirement of FYC. Noting widespread conservative resistance to The University of Texas at Austin’s attempted 1990 reinvention of FYC—E 306, centered on social issues via American legal discourse—she claims composition studies’ subjugation to and tacit forwarding of the university’s broader institutional agenda is inevitable so long as FYC is required. The course can only be unmoored from servility if it is also unmoored from universality. (It is worth noting that she forwards this position in a section entitled “A Modest Proposal,” and that this section’s Swiftian namesake proposes a radical, ironic, undesirable solution only necessary because of larger systemic problems—a connection probably not lost on Crowley.)
Near the end of the book, Crowley puts forth the argument mentioned in this review’s introduction: A call for composition instructors to look to classical rhetorical theory as a model for the subject matter of the de-universalized FYC course. Unlike humanism and current-traditionalism, which purport to know what students need regardless of what students have to say, classical rhetorical theory provides a flexible, socially aware approach to composition and argument much more germane to Crowley’s vision of the first-year course.
January 24, 2010
Crowley's 1998 Composition in the University is Crowley's perspective on the history of composition as a discipline and first-year requirement in North American universities. Much of her book explores how Composition has been undervalued in many ways by English departments, with teaching relegated to un-tenured faculty and graduate students, but also how the program was needed by English departments in order to become large departments where faculty to specialized in aspects of literature and teach those specialized courses (4, 11).
Crowley uses her history to claim that first-year composition should "become a part of the disciplinary practices of composition studies," and thus part of a sequence of non-required composition courses that students would elect to take (9, 29, 241).
Crowley also chronicles the ideological shifts in the pedagogy of first-year composition, arguing that the humanist approach (which focuses on the improvement of student character through reading great works in literature) is not the best approach. Part of Crowley's reasoning for this is that humanist literary study focuses on completed texts, while composition needs to focus on the production and development of texts, and that humanism is more metaphysical than it is rhetorical (13-14).
To briefly summarize Crowley's history:
• The nineteenth century saw a decline in the study of rhetoric—a "focus on public, civic, discourse"—in the United States and an increased focus on "developing taste in their students" instead (34). This was due in part to the creation of the modern university, modeled after German universities. The developed requirement of freshman composition also helped to legitimize English studies (esp. since freshman composition usually focused on literature) (58-59).
• Part of the legitimizing of literature as an area of study in the late nineteenth century involved alienating students from their language, which Crowley argues was done in three steps: "The first step in the process was to define English as a language from which its native speakers were alienated. The second step was to establish an entrance examination in English that was very difficult to pass. The third step, necessitated by the large number of failures on the exam, was to install a course of study that would remediate the lack demonstrated by the exam" (60).
• Because composition was taught from a humanist/literary perspective, it was easily tied to current-traditional rhetoric, which "is not a rhetoric at all" because it is not situated, but is focused on forms or genres: "exposition, description, narrative, and argument" (94). Humanism and current-traditional rhetoric could be tied together so easily because both required "that students' expression of character be put under the constant surveillance so that they could be 'improved' by correction" (97).
• During World War II, composition began to focus more on communication skills because the military was asking that soldiers be taught communication skills. Because of this, composition teachers created professional associations (CCCC) and some composition teachers turned to rhetorical theory to understand communication (instead of simply expression) (155-156). The 1940s saw an increase in progressive thought (influenced by Dewey) in composition courses, and a focus on education for the benefit of democracy. While the communication skills focus flourished in some ways, it was intellectually demanding on teachers and required administrative support (testing, labs, etc.)—along with these problems, many English departments were resistant to communication skills, and the trend largely faded out by 1960 (183).
• Starting in the 1970s, process pedagogy began to develop, which brought about three changes: 1) the professionalization of teaching FYC with research; 2) the idea that students are writers rather than people whose grammar needs policed; and 3) composition became more fun to teach (191). While there are differences between product pedagogy and process pedagogy, Crowley doubts that this shift was that big: textbooks still espoused current-traditional models, and process pedagogy did little to question modernist notions of a required course and composition's situatedness in the university (212-213). One important effect of process pedagogy, however, is that it altered the ideology of composition programs from conservative to liberal (218)
Crowley closes her book with a few important arguments that she takes out of her history: 1) teaching is always political (Chapter 10); 2) the requirement of FYC produces student subjectivity as "docile student" (217); 3) it's doubtful whether a required course can be turned "to radical purposes" (235); 4) composition as a requirement should be abolished (241). This last point Crowley argues because required FYC exploits part-time teachers and graduate students, as well as students; the curriculum is harmed by trying to reach every student; the classroom environment is harmed by being a requirement; and the requirement harms the discipline of composition because it becomes a gatekeeping course and sits low on the hierarchy at universities (241-243).
Crowley uses her history to claim that first-year composition should "become a part of the disciplinary practices of composition studies," and thus part of a sequence of non-required composition courses that students would elect to take (9, 29, 241).
Crowley also chronicles the ideological shifts in the pedagogy of first-year composition, arguing that the humanist approach (which focuses on the improvement of student character through reading great works in literature) is not the best approach. Part of Crowley's reasoning for this is that humanist literary study focuses on completed texts, while composition needs to focus on the production and development of texts, and that humanism is more metaphysical than it is rhetorical (13-14).
To briefly summarize Crowley's history:
• The nineteenth century saw a decline in the study of rhetoric—a "focus on public, civic, discourse"—in the United States and an increased focus on "developing taste in their students" instead (34). This was due in part to the creation of the modern university, modeled after German universities. The developed requirement of freshman composition also helped to legitimize English studies (esp. since freshman composition usually focused on literature) (58-59).
• Part of the legitimizing of literature as an area of study in the late nineteenth century involved alienating students from their language, which Crowley argues was done in three steps: "The first step in the process was to define English as a language from which its native speakers were alienated. The second step was to establish an entrance examination in English that was very difficult to pass. The third step, necessitated by the large number of failures on the exam, was to install a course of study that would remediate the lack demonstrated by the exam" (60).
• Because composition was taught from a humanist/literary perspective, it was easily tied to current-traditional rhetoric, which "is not a rhetoric at all" because it is not situated, but is focused on forms or genres: "exposition, description, narrative, and argument" (94). Humanism and current-traditional rhetoric could be tied together so easily because both required "that students' expression of character be put under the constant surveillance so that they could be 'improved' by correction" (97).
• During World War II, composition began to focus more on communication skills because the military was asking that soldiers be taught communication skills. Because of this, composition teachers created professional associations (CCCC) and some composition teachers turned to rhetorical theory to understand communication (instead of simply expression) (155-156). The 1940s saw an increase in progressive thought (influenced by Dewey) in composition courses, and a focus on education for the benefit of democracy. While the communication skills focus flourished in some ways, it was intellectually demanding on teachers and required administrative support (testing, labs, etc.)—along with these problems, many English departments were resistant to communication skills, and the trend largely faded out by 1960 (183).
• Starting in the 1970s, process pedagogy began to develop, which brought about three changes: 1) the professionalization of teaching FYC with research; 2) the idea that students are writers rather than people whose grammar needs policed; and 3) composition became more fun to teach (191). While there are differences between product pedagogy and process pedagogy, Crowley doubts that this shift was that big: textbooks still espoused current-traditional models, and process pedagogy did little to question modernist notions of a required course and composition's situatedness in the university (212-213). One important effect of process pedagogy, however, is that it altered the ideology of composition programs from conservative to liberal (218)
Crowley closes her book with a few important arguments that she takes out of her history: 1) teaching is always political (Chapter 10); 2) the requirement of FYC produces student subjectivity as "docile student" (217); 3) it's doubtful whether a required course can be turned "to radical purposes" (235); 4) composition as a requirement should be abolished (241). This last point Crowley argues because required FYC exploits part-time teachers and graduate students, as well as students; the curriculum is harmed by trying to reach every student; the classroom environment is harmed by being a requirement; and the requirement harms the discipline of composition because it becomes a gatekeeping course and sits low on the hierarchy at universities (241-243).
July 21, 2009
I read it for my doctorate. Though I have different epistemological view than Crowley, her reading of the difficult position of composition in the modern university is brilliant.
December 13, 2012
My professor was a huge fan. I thought it was ok. Composition Theory.
March 20, 2016
This was very helpful for understanding the history of Composition and Rhetoric for school.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews