The period from 1949 to 1994 marks a transformative era in the field of composition theory. This historical overview highlights key events and publications that have significantly shaped the discipline.
From the establishment of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC) in 1949, which laid the foundation for modern composition studies, to the publication of influential works. Influential works include McCrimmon’s “Writing with a Purpose” and the first issue of “College Composition and Communication” in 1950. This timeline captures the evolution of composition theory.
Notable milestones include landmark court decisions. They also include groundbreaking publications and pivotal conferences. These milestones have contributed to the development of composition as a scholarly field. This overview provides a comprehensive look at the major events. It examines the contributions that have defined composition theory over these crucial decades.
Key Events in Composition Theory: 1949-1962
1949
Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC)
NCTE mandated this conference. They recognized the need for rethinking the freshman [sic] writing course.
Helped lay the foundation for the modern discipline of composition studies.
1950
McCrimmon’s Writing with a Purpose (1st ed.) published.
1950
College Composition and Communication (the journal) first published.
1954
High Court Bans School Segregation; 9 – to – 0
Decision Grants Time to Comply
--The New York Times
Headline, May 18, 19541957
Langer’s Philosophy in a New Key published.
“shift from discussion of knowledge as truth and its perceptions to the symbolic interchange and interpretation of information”
1957
Soviet Fires Earth Satellite into Space: It is Circling the Globe at 18,000 M.P.H.; Sphere Tracked in 4 Crossings Over U.S.
--The New York Times
Headline, October 5, 19571962
Lev Vygotsky’s Thought and Language published.
Relationship of thought and language social, not cognitive.
Thought → Language
Absorb more about written language from reading than speaking.
Key Events in Composition Theory: 1963-1967
1963
Braddock, Lloyd-Jones, Schoer’s Research in Written Composition published by NCTE.
Survey of research in composition to-date (not much); often credited with initiating the great grammar debate.
Encouraged high standards for research in the field.
1963
Christensen’s “A Generative Rhetoric of the Sentence” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
Cumulative sentence = sentences in which modifying words and phrases are added before, within, or after the base clause.
1965
Young & Becker’s “Toward a Modern Theory of Rhetoric: A Tagmemic Contribution” appeared in Harvard Educational Review.
Systematized their statement on epistemic rhetoric.
Particle-wave-field.
Tagmemics.
1965
Becker’s “A Tagmemic Approach to Paragraph Analysis” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
1965
Christensen’s “A Generative Rhetoric of the Paragraph” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
Paragraph structure echoes sentence structure.
1965
Rodger’s “Alexander Bain and the Rise of the Organic Paragraph” appeared in Quarterly Journal of Speech.
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1965
Corbett’s Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (1st ed.) published by Oxford University Press.
Offers accessible discussion of the classic plan for organizing prose.
Suggests imitative exercises.
Style (schemes and tropes).
1965
Moffett’s “I, You, and It” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
Discourse is structured as a set of relationships among a speaker (I), a listener (You), and a subject (It).
1966
Rodger’s “A Discourse-Centered Rhetoric of the Paragraph” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
Identified the principal organization unit of the essay as the stadium.
Stadium = a completed movement in the flow of an author’s thought.
1966
Anglo-American Seminar on the Teaching of English (also known as the Dartmouth Conference)
Teacher scholars from Britain and US came together to define English as a school subject. They also outlined ways it might be taught. One outcome that Hairston points out is a de-emphasis on “the formal teaching of grammar and usage in the classroom.” There is an emphasis on “having children engage directly in the writing process in a non-prescriptive atmosphere” (81).
The Dartmouth model of self-expression (active students) opposed the Harvard-model of strict standards (passive students).
Sponsored by MLA and NCTE.
For more information, see John Dixon’s Growth through English (1967).
1967
Research in the Teaching of English was begun by NCTE.
Was to be a research outlet.
1967
Piaget’s Six Psychological Studies is published by ….
Language → Thinking
1967
Muller’s The Uses of English: Guidelines for Teaching of English from the Anglo-American Conference at Dartmouth College is published. The publisher is Holt, Rinehart & Winston. The book summarizes the conclusions agreed upon at the 1966 Dartmouth conference. It also makes several recommendations.
Makes several recommendations.
1967
Rodgers’ “The Stadium of Discourse” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
Key Events in Composition Theory: 1968-1971
1968
Moffett’s Teaching the Universe of Discourse is published by Houghton Mifflin.
The theoretical treatise.
English classes in schools should focus on language as a symbol system that enables increasingly abstract thought.
Move students through a “spectrum” of kinds of discourse.
1968
Moffett’s Student-Centered Language Arts, K-12 is published by Houghton Mifflin.
The practical treatise.
1968
Murray’s A Writer Teaches Writing is published by ….
Advocates teaching writing through a workshop approach.
Provides advice on teaching the whole writing process.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
1969
MAN WALKS ON MOON
Astronauts Land on Plain;
College Rocks; Plant Flag
--The New York Times
Headline, July 21, 19691969
Zoellner’s “Talk-Write: A Behavioral Pedagogy for Composition” appears in College English.
Use of behavioral psychology in writing instruction.
Skinner’s psychology of learning (observable).
1969
Kinneavy’s “The Basic Aims of Discourse” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
1970
Young, Becker, & Pike’s Rhetoric: Discovery and Change is published by Harcourt, Brace and world.
Particle-wave-field.
Seldom used in undergraduate courses.
Influential work on invention and persuasion methods derived from psychology and linguistics.
1970
Britton’s Language and Learning is published in England by Penguin.
Attempt to trace the development of language in a child.
Concepts of spectator and participant help distinguish functions of discourse.
1970
Bruffee’s “The Way Out: A Critical Survey of Innovations in College Teaching” appeared in College English.
1970
Macrorie’s Uptaught is published by Hayden Press.
Dissatisfaction with own teaching and school standards led to developing the “telling writing” pedagogy.
Coined the term ”engfish” –
“a language in which fresh truth is almost impossible to express” (9).
“A feel-nothing, say-nothing language, dead like Latin, devoid of the rhythms of contemporary speech. A dialect in which words are almost never “attached to things,” as Emerson said they should be” (18).
1970
Macrorie’s Telling Writing is published by Hayden Press.
Contains lessons on telling facts, working through facts to large meanings, using a journal, sharpening word choice, and writing critically.
Works against the dull, impersonal prose required of students in many college classes.
1970
Labov’s The Study of Nonstandard English is published by NCTE.
Sociolinguist explored dialectal variation.
Helped teachers see that the new classroom population was not cognitively deficient, but linguistically and culturally diverse.
Dialects as conceptual systems.
1970
Winterowd’s “The Grammar of Coherence” appeared in College English.
Identifies seven transitional relations that account for coherence.
Coordinate, obversative, causative, conclusive, alternative, inclusive, and sequential.
1971
Kinneavy’s A Theory of Discourse: The Aims of Discourse is published by Norton.
Discourse divided into 4 main types (reference, persuasive, literary, and expressive).
Based on communication triangle.
1971
Berthoff’s “The Problem of Problem-Solving” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
Part of a contentious exchange with Lauer on heuristic procedures.
The exchange is reproduced in Winterowd’s Contemporary Rhetoric: A Conceptual Background with Readings (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), pp. 79-103.
1971
Emig’s The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders is published by NCTE.
Based on dissertation.
Studied 8 twelfth graders by asking them to provide talk-aloud protocols while composing and interviewing them extensively.
Key Events in Composition Theory: 1972-1973
1972
Murray’s “Teach Writing as Process, Not Product” appeared in The Leaflet.
Hairston suggests that “Murray may have originated the admonition” (84).
1972
Freshman English News established.
Now titled Composition Studies.
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1972
Stewart’s The Authentic Voice: A Pre-Writing Approach to Student Writing is published by Dubuque.
1973
Burke’s A Rhetoric of Motives is published by University of California Press.
1973
Elbow’s Writing without Teachers is published by Oxford University Press.
Good writing does not necessarily proceed from an organized outline. Writers don’t always know what they want to say before they start writing.
Important concepts/metaphors = “doubting game,” “believing game,” and “freewriting.”
1973
Shaughnessy’s “Open Admissions and the Disadvantaged Teacher” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
1973
Bruffee’s “Collaborative Learning: Some Practical Models” appeared in College English.
Key Events in Composition Theory: 1974-1977
1974
CCCC’s Resolution on Students’ Right To Their Own Language
The resolution was passed at the annual business meeting. The vote was 79 to 20.
It was argued that students would learn Standard English more easily if they were allowed to write some school assignments in their home languages. This approach could facilitate better learning of Standard English.
Called for teacher education to include work in dialectal variation.
See “Students’ Right to Their Own Language,” CCC 25 (Fall 1974).
1974
Coles’ Teaching Composing: A Guide to Teaching Writing as a Self-Composing Process is published by Hayden Press.
1974
D’Angelo’s “A Generative Rhetoric of the Essay” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
Study of form.
Syntagmatic view of structure.
1974
First American Writing-Across-the-Curriculum program started.
At Carleton College in Minnesota.
1974
Diederich’s Measuring Growth in English is published by NCTE.
Factor analysis of readers’ responses to essay tests.
Essential for explain statistical problems.
1974
Garrison’s “One-to-One: Tutorial Instruction in Freshman English” appeared in New Directions for Community Colleges.
Provides detailed advice on commenting effectively in a short conference.
Classroom should be setup as a workshop. Students work independently at their own pace. They also consult with the instructor.
1975
Ong’s “The Writer’s Audience is Always a Fiction” appeared in PMLA.
Writers project audiences for their work by imagining the presumptive audiences of other pieces of writing.
Style or voice is a way of addressing an imagined audience to garner the appropriate response.
1975
Britton, Burgess, Martin, McLeod, & Rosen’s The Development of Writing Abilities (11-18) is published by NCTE.
Study of approximately 2000 papers written by British school children, ages 11-18.
Their writing fell into 3 categories (transactional, poetic, expressive).
1975
D’Angelo’s A Conceptual Theory of Rhetoric is published by Winthrop.
Attempt to see text as a planned total unit.
Grounded in classical rhetorical theory?
Draws heavily on the work of Francis Christensen.
1976
Emig’s “Diving In: An Introduction to Basic Writing” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
1977
Shaughnessy’s Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing is published by Oxford University Press.
Initiated the study of basic writing.
Prompted by open admissions.
Explored the pedagogical problems posed by dialectal variation in classroom.
Argued teachers must consider cultural background.
1977
Hirsch’s The Philosophy of Composition is published by University of Chicago Press.
Earlier a literary theorist.
Argued composition was a formalistic discipline, a set of skills to be learned.
Narrowed skills of writing down to a small number of principles and maxims.
Replaced? this thinking with cultural literacy.
In 1977, Emig’s “Writing as a Mode of Learning” highlighted that writing engages multiple senses and brain hemispheres, demands emotional commitment, allows for self-paced learning, and serves as a valuable learning mode.
Key Events in Composition Theory: 1978-1984
In 1978, Coles’ The Plural I: The Teaching of Writing is published, arguing that school writing is often themewriting, which is correct yet meaningless prose. He suggests that writing should be taught by collaboratively addressing an intellectual problem, and that discussing students’ essays fosters a productive awareness of language use.
1978
Journal of Basic Writing established.
1978
Berthoff’s Forming / Thinking / Writing: The Composing Imagination is published by Hayden.
Writing is a process of making meaning.
Offers a series of “assisted invitations” to explore the composing process, from simple observation to forming concepts and writing critically.
1978
Bruffee’s “The Brooklyn Plan: Attaining Intellectual Growth through Peer-Group Tutoring” appeared in Liberal Education.
Brooklyn Plan = tutors trained in advanced composition help other students in expository composition.
Describes the tutor-training program.
1979
Flower’s “Writer-Based Prose: A Cognitive Basis for Problems in Writing” appeared in College English.
1979
WPA: Writing Program Administration established.
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1979
PRE/TEXT established.
1980
Freshman English News identified 53 institutions as having added graduate rhetoric courses since 1974.
See Hairston, p. 87.
1980
The Writing Center Journal established.
1980
Journal of Advanced Composition established.
1980
Macrorie’s Searching Writing published by Hayden Press.
1980
Hayes & Flower’s “Writing as Problem-Solving” appeared in Visible Language.
1981
Elbow’s Writing with Power is published by Oxford University Press.
Writing well becomes a powerful way of relating to the world.
Offers more teaching suggestions than earlier Writing without Teachers.
1981
The Writing Instructor established.
1981
Journal of Teaching Writing established.
1981
Berthoff’s The Making of Meaning: Metaphors, Models, and Maxims for Writing Teachers is published by Boynton/Cook.
To study composing is to study how we use language to interpret and know the world.
Connects the theories of Richards, Vygotsky, and Tolstoy, Sylvia Ashton-Warner, Jane Addams, and others.
1981
Flower & Hayes’ “A Cognitive Process Theory of Writing” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
Analyzes structure of writing process through “protocol analysis.”
Protocol analysis = asking writers to think aloud while writing and then analyzing the writers’ narratives.
1981
Knoblauch & Brannon’s “Teacher Commentary on Student Writing: The State of the Art” appeared in Freshman English News.
1982
Hairston’s “The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the Teaching of Writing” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
Claimed the field of composition “[was] currently at the point of such a paradigm shift [i.e., as defined by Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions]” (76).
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1982
Rhetoric Review established.
1982
Bizzell’s “Cognition, Convention, and Certainty: What We Need to Know about Writing” appeared in PRE/TEXT.
1984
Moffett’s “Writing, Inner Speech, and Meditation” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
1984
Written Communication established.
1984
Computers and Composition established.
1984
Bedford/St. Martin’s published the first edition of The Bedford Bibliography.
Now titled The Bedford Bibliography for Teachers of Writing.
1984
Knoblauch and Brannon’s Rhetorical Traditions and the Teaching of Writing.
1984
Bruffee’s “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind’” appeared in College English.
The ability to think is not innate; it is developed socially.
Knowledge is also socially constructed.
Mastery of a community’s discourse operates as acculturation.
Key Events in Composition Theory: 1986-1994
1986
Bizzell’s “On the Possibility of a Unified Theory of Composition and Literature” appeared in Rhetoric Review.
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1986
Bartholomae & Petrosky’s Facts, Artifacts, and Counterfacts is published by Boynton/Cook.
Explains theory behind the University of Pittsburgh’s course.
Includes course materials.
Based on premise that writers can learn to use academic discourse by reading difficult books and writing about their reading processes.
1987
Bizzell’s “Foundationalism and Anti-Foundationalism in Composition Studies” appeared in PRE/TEXT.
Foundationalism = the philosophical position that there are absolute and knowable standards of truth.
Antifoundationalism = holds that such standards are nonexistent or unknowable and that human judgments of truth must be relative to personal emotions, social circumstances, and historical conditions.
1987
Beale’s A Pragmatic Theory of Rhetoric is published by Southern Illinois University Press.
1989
CCCC Committee on Professional Standards for Quality Education offers “CCCC Initiatives on the Wyoming Conference Resolution: A Draft Report” in College Composition and Communication.
The Wyoming Resolution
1994
Flower’s The Construction of Negotiated Meaning: A Social Cognitive Theory of Writing is published by Southern Illinois University Press.
1994
Herzberg’s “Community Service and Critical Teaching” appeared in College Composition and Communication.
Composition Theory in Review
The period from 1949 to 1994 was marked by significant developments in composition theory, reflecting the dynamic and evolving nature of the field. The establishment of key organizations, the publication of influential works, and the emergence of new pedagogical approaches have all contributed to the rich tapestry of composition studies. As we reflect on these pivotal moments, it is evident that the discipline has continually adapted to meet the changing needs of students and educators.
The contributions of scholars, researchers, and practitioners during this era have laid a strong foundation for future advancements in composition theory. As we move forward, it is essential to build upon this legacy, fostering innovation and inclusivity in the teaching and study of writing.
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