
In the Archives of Composition
Writing and Rhetoric in High Schools and Normal Schools
University of Pittsburgh Press
Published on 12. October 2015
Book
Paperback/Softback
264 pages
978-0-8229-6377-6 (ISBN)
Description
In the Archives of Composition offers new and revisionary narratives of composition and rhetoric's history. It examines composition instruction and practice at secondary schools and normal colleges, the two institutions that trained the majority of U.S. composition teachers and students during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Drawing from a broad array of archival and documentary sources, the contributors provide accounts of writing instruction within contexts often overlooked by current historical scholarship. Topics range from the efforts of young women to attain rhetorical skills in an antebellum academy, to the self-reflections of Harvard University students on their writing skills in the 1890s, to a close reading of a high school girl's diary in the 1960s that offers a new perspective on curriculum debates of this period. Taken together, the chapters begin to recover how high school students, composition teachers, and English education programs responded to institutional and local influences, political movements, and pedagogical innovations over a one-hundred-and-thirty-year span.
Reviews / Votes
This volume deepens our understanding of writing education by moving beyond the university setting to examine the high school and normal school context. In so doing the book engages narratives familiar to the field and introduces stories that have been overlooked or ignored, complicating our histories while broadening our methodological horizons. It should be required reading for all writing teachers and historians. * Suzanne Bordelon, San Diego State University * An important collection for scholars in the field of composition and rhetoric. It explores an area of history in our field that is rarely covered and contributes greatly to an unknown area. Thorough, engaging, and very readable. * Lisa Mastrangelo, Centenary College of New Jersey *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Pittsburgh PA
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 226 mm
Width: 152 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
386 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8229-6377-6 (9780822963776)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

Lori Ostergaard | Henrietta Rix Wood
In the Archives of Composition
Writing and Rhetoric in High Schools and Normal Schools
E-Book
10/2015
Penguin Random House South Africa
€54.49
Available for download
Persons
Lori Ostergaard is associate professor and chair of the department of writing and rhetoric at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.