A Unified View of the Subject: Some Suggestions from the Trenches

Abstract

teaching, and I submit that something is lacking. The something lacking is not inherent in the courses themselves, but in their organization and in the assumptions that may or may not have led to their creation. My point is that English majors come from their respective schools not knowing what the subject is; they have few coherent assumptions about the nature of the subject. In the case of English education majors, this is a particularly unhappy situation, since one can scarcely teach a subject whose nature and boundaries he is only dimly aware of. College English departments should give their majors a comprehensive view of the subject. Perhaps courses should be set up for this very purpose, but at the very least a department could publish its assumptions about the subject, and indicate how individual courses grow out of those assumptions. Our department has spent considerable time defining the subject and creating courses in which it can be most effectively taught; I offer our work, in hope of starting a trend.