JAC Volume 11 Issue 2

On Literacy and Its Teaching is the inaugural volume in the SUNY Series "Literacy, Culture, and Learning: Theory and Practice," under the general editorship of Alan Purves. According to Purves, this collection of essays "seeks to reflect not only the latest thinking about the teaching and learning of language, literature, and writing, but also to consider that thinking in a historical and practical perspective." Offering a view of literacy as both an individual and social act embedded within a culture, the volume explores "competing ideologies," providing a framework for a "synthesis," setting a direction for literacy education policy, and suggesting a program for teacher training. Taken at face value, these are weighty promises to make. They inevitably lead to disappointment. Nevertheless, Literacy and Its Teaching is a helpful volume.

Hawisher and Soter target a large and diverse audience: preservice English teachers enrolled in methods courses, inservice teachers participating in professional development programs, and graduate students preparing to become educators. Their aim is to invite these groups to participate in the "larger arena of educational discourse." The whole book is shaped by the editors' awareness of "the need to professionalize English teachers as decision makers in the shaping of policies and in the designing of curricula for the comprehensive field of English education."

Arranged in four parts, the volume addresses an extensive range of topics. Part I, Teaching as a Profession: Issues and Responsibilities, includes six essays addressing concerns such as the history of English teaching in the secondary schools, the National Writing Project model for professional development, and the current debate over standardized testing of teachers for credentialing. These are more or less informative.

The initial essay, Gail Hawisher's "Content Knowledge versus Process Knowledge: A False Dichotomy," provides a preview of the major issues to be addressed and establishes the agenda. She discusses the current conflict between the cultural heritage model for teaching English (a content-centered approach associated with E.D. Hirsch's work with cultural literacy) and the values education/personal growth model (a student centered approach originated by John Dewey and the progressivists of the 1930s and 1940s). The controversy is raised but not seriously examined. It serves rather as an organizing technique. She offers a list of oppositions, or "false dichotomies," divided under headings dealing with education in general, and with composition, literature, and language teaching. Hawisher claims, "Most would argue that their position lies somewhere between and that the dualistic language fails to capture their interpretation of education."

There is a problem in such an approach: in the rush toward synthesis, these radically different approaches are never defined and explored in their own right. This is a disservice to much of the audience. Teachers will be required, at one time or another, to develop a coherent and informed response to proponents of either side. Moreover, this middle-of-the-road approach encourages a less-than-critical attitude toward radicalism at either side of education's political spectrum. If one of the points of the volume is the need for increased professionalism among teachers, then the radical points of view from both the left and the right should be presented in full, so that teachers can decide for themselves what elements of each camp should be considered in the synthesis.

Also disappointing in its lack of depth is Charles Harris' "Report from the Eastern Shore: The English Coalition Conference." The conference was organized to give English educators at every level the opportunity to formulate a response to the attacks of Hirsch, Bennett, and others of the right. Harris suggests that the various groups represented at the conference struggled to form a consensus. However, he reports the consensus without discussing the conflicts within the groups; he offers a summary, thereby missing an opportunity to provide substantive information from which his readers could draw their own conclusions.

Part II, Textual Relationships and Pedagogy: Literature and Writing, contains three essays dealing with contemporary approaches to studying and teaching literature. Two of the essays deserve special note. Robert Probst's "Literature and Literacy" again raises the oppositions resulting from Hirsch's critique and the cultural literacy movement. Probst also seizes the middle ground, arguing for a sensible balance of expressive and inferential goals in teaching. The aim is to enable students to participate in the great debate, the ultimate goal, he claims, of all literacy teaching: "involvement in the ongoing dialogue of the culture about the issues or questions, or problems that have occupied its people." In the process, he introduces five kinds of literary knowing, a helpful digest of contemporary thinking about literature and literacy, one that is concrete and usable by its intended audience of high school teachers.

George Newell also makes a useful contribution in "Exploring the Relationships between Writing and Literary Understanding: A Language and Learning Perspective." He reviews current controversies and contemporary research to make a strong argument for emphasizing writing for learning within the literature curriculum. He draws heavily and productively on the work of Appleby and Langer, especially "How Writing Shapes Thinking" (NCTE, 1987), providing a helpful elaboration of their concept of instructional scaffolding. Newell communicates both the potential and the excitement possible in literacy teaching.

Part III, Rhetoric and Composition: Designs for Integration," presents three chapters on contemporary research in rhetoric and the composing process, including an exploration of the contributions of classical rhetoric to teaching writing. This section also includes the now obligatory essay on the use of computers in teaching writing: Cynthia Selfe reminds teachers that applying new technologies to old problems is not a panacea and should be considered with the same caution and planning as in any major curricular revision.

Of these articles, one deserves special note. In "Rhetorical Theory and the Teaching of Writing," Andrea Lunsford and Cheryl Glenn provide the most effective brief introduction to contemporary rhetorical theory I have yet encountered. Providing both substantive background and thoughtful application, it is the one essay of the collection I would use for staff development in a college English department. In a sense, this piece establishes the "canon" of contemporary rhetorical theory.

Part IV, The Learning of Language: Teachers and Their Students," contains two essays. In "Watching Our Grammar: The English Language for English Teachers," Dennis Baron addresses key issues and misconceptions that have grown around the teaching of grammar, including linguistic corruption, the arbitrary nature of standard English, and the difference between linguistic theory and a school grammar. He offers a set of topics with which all teachers should be familiar. Not much attention, however, is given to implementation. By my reckoning, Baron would require several courses, perhaps the equivalent of a minor in linguistics and language theory. This may not be a bad idea, but how likely is such a change in requirements?

With an audience ranging from apprentices through masters, it's inevitable that some chapters will miss their mark. Several address specialized topics, presenting digests of existing research that may serve to confuse rather than clarify. This is the case with Anna Soter's "The English Teacher and the Non-English-Speaking Student: Facing the Multicultural/Multilingual Challenge," an encyclopedic consideration of the problem. So much is covered so quickly that information overload may result. Soter recommends greater collaboration between scholars and classroom teachers. She argues that teacher education programs should include specific attention to second language instruction and multiculturality.

One problem with the volume is that in several instances specialists act as lobbyists for their particular area, arguing, as Soter does, that their specialties receive particular attention in the teacher education curriculum. As lobbyists, the specialists may successfully argue their cases. Nevertheless, the problem remains: what topics and professional concerns ought to be addressed in the education of our teachers? The volume addresses the problem globally, by implicitly endorsing the Holmes Group's call for reorganizing the teacher certification programs into five-year, combined undergraduate/graduate programs. As sensible as these recommendations are, they do not consider problems with implementation.