Writing in the Academic Disciplines, 1870-1990: A Curricular History - Hardcover

Russell, David R

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809315963 ISBN 13: 9780809315963

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991

Synopsis

In this singular study, David R. Russell provides a history of writing instruction outside general composition courses in American secondary and higher education, from the founding of public secondary schools and research universities in the 1870s through the spread of the writing-across-the-curriculum movement in the 1980s.

Russell’s task is to examine the ways writing was taught in the myriad curricula that composed the varied structure of secondary and higher education in modern America. He begins with the assertion that, before the 1870s, writing was taught as ancillary to speaking. As a result, formal writing instruction was essentially training in handwriting, the mechanical process of transcribing sound to visual form.

From this point, Russell carefully examines academic writing, its origins and its teaching, from a broad institutional perspective. He looks at the history of little-studied genres of student writing such as the research paper, lab report, and essay examination. Tracing the effects of increasing specialization on writing instruction, he notes how two new ideals of academic life, research and utilitarian service, shaped writing instruction into its modern forms. Finally, he contributes the definitive history of the current writing-across-the-curriculum movement, providing a study of the long tradition of other WAC efforts with an analysis of why they have waned.

About this title

About the Author

David R. Russell is a professor of English at Iowa State University, where he teaches rhetoric and professional communication.  He has published many articles on writing across the curriculum and has coedited Landmark Essays on Writing Across the Curriculum, a special issue of Mind, Culture, and Activity, and Writing and Learning in Cross-National Perspective: Transitions from Secondary to Higher Education. He has given workshops and lectures on writing across the curriculum nationally and internationally, and he was the first Knight Visiting Scholar in Writing at Cornell University.

Review

“ A discipline comes of age when someone realizes that it possesses a history and stands for something worth arguing about— that it makes a difference, is thereby political, and can no longer be considered transparent and value-neutral. Such coming-of-age presupposes historical consciousness, not just the marked passage of time. This sense of consciousness David R. Russell offers to the profession of composition in Writing in the Academic Disciplines, a history of writing instruction seen ‘ not through the lens of the English department or through the lens of cultural and rhetorical history’ but rather ‘ from the perspective of academic institutions, especially their disciplinary structure. . . .’ ” — Technical Communication Quarterly

“ Writing in the Academic Disciplines is fascinating reading. The research is thorough and detailed. Along with contemporary and historical articles and books about writing instruction, Russell reviews and quotes from articles and books written by educators at the time, from college catalogs, and from personal reports of instruction. The personal accounts add human interest to the historical analysis, and the discussion of the cross-curricular writing programs as reflective of educational movements broadens the focus beyond English studies. In the depth and variety of its coverage, Writing in the Academic Disciplines adds dimension to other historical accounts of twentieth-century writing instruction.”

— Journal of Technical Writing and Communication

Edition details

• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0809315963
• ISBN 13: 9780809315963
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 400