Response to reform : composition and the professionalization of teaching / Margaret J. Marshall.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Marshall, Margaret J.

Series:

Studies in writing & rhetoric

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching--United States.

English language.

English language--Rhetoric--Study and teaching.

English teachers.

Sexism in higher education.

United States.

Report writing--Study and teaching (Higher)--United States.

Report writing.

Report writing--Study and teaching (Higher).

Sex discrimination in higher education--United States.

Sex discrimination in higher education.

Sexism in higher education--United States.

Feminism and education--United States.

Feminism and education.

Educational change--United States.

Educational change.

English teachers--United States.

Physical Description:

xii, 197 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

Carbondale : Southern Illinois University Press, [2004]

Summary:

Response to Reform: Composition and the Professionalization of Teaching critiques the politics of labor and gender biases inherent in the composition workplace that prevent literacy teachers from attaining professional status and respect. Scrutinizing the relationship between scholarship and teaching, Margaret J. Marshall calls for a reconceptualization of what it means to prepare for and enter the field of composition instruction. Our society and our academic institutions often view teaching as less than authentic intellectual accomplishment. Thus, when expectations increase for a new level of literacy in composition instruction at the university level, general concern over the condition of higher education shifts to criticism of teachers and teaching. The response to such public criticism is often a call for teachers to be re-educated through specialized programs of training and certification.

Interrogating the approach the education system takes to certify teachers without actually "professionalizing" their careers, Marshall contends that these programs rely on outdated rhetorics of labor that only widen the gap between teaching and other professional jobs. Such attempts to reeducate literacy teachers exploit and marginalize their work, and thus prevent them from claiming the status of academic professionals. In providing an overview of the history of and language used to characterize literacy instruction, she also points out that while women are overrepresented in composition instruction, they are underrepresented in tenure track and administrative positions. To correct and combat these inequities, Marshall advocates an alternate alignment of power structures and rhetorical choices. In a wide-ranging survey that sheds new light on the composition workplace as well as higher education at large, Response to Reform: Composition and the Professionalization of Teaching boldly asks us to do away with the inherited reductive language that characterizes teaching and professionalization, as well as our customary responses to public criticism of education. The result is a new articulation of composition as a meritorious profession.

Contents:

1. Survival from a Time Now Dead 1

2. Fit to Keep School 18

3. Reshaping Professional Training 63

4. A Mere Factory Hand 93

5. Standing to Speak 143.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 183-190) and index.

ISBN:

0809325454

OCLC:

51900401