Understanding Teaching and Interpretation in Literature and Composition-Rhetoric

Abstract

McDonald, Christina Russell, and Robert L. McDonald, eds. 2002. Teaching Writing: Landmarks and Horizons. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. $25.00 sc. xv + 301 pp. Olson, Gary A., and Lynn Worsham, eds. 2003. Critical Intellectuals on Writing. Albany: SUNY Press. $54.50 hc.$17.95 sc. 209 pp. Tokarczyk, Michelle M., and Irene Papoulis, eds. 2003. Teaching Composition/Teaching Literature: Crossing Great Divides. New York: Peter Lang Publishers. $29.95 sc. 170 pp. TuSmith, Bonnie, and Maureen T. Reddy, eds. 2002. Race in the College Classroom: Pedagogy and Politics. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press. $60.00 hc. $22.00 sc. x + 326 pp. [End Page 189] Winifred Bryan Horner noted in the introduction to her 1983 collection Composition and Literature a concern with what she called the "widening gulf between research and teaching in literature and research and teaching in composition" (1983, 1). She went on to describe the book as "an attempt to uncover fresh and exciting opportunities within our profession" (8) by understanding synergies between the two fields. Following Horner, as a composition-rhetoric scholar with a background in literary studies, I also hope to better mobilize together the strengths and limitations of these two area of English studies. Thus, in this review essay, I show how four quite distinct collections—all addressing literacy, writing, and pedagogy in different ways—each has something to contribute to both literature and composition, and towards that end, I focus on reading each collection through the perspective of connecting the two fields of study. These books illustrate one of the most compelling similarities between literature and composition studies: their commitment to introducing postsecondary students to new—and increasingly complex—literacy practices. Taking this shared commitment to postsecondary literacy education as a foundation, I engage these four collections with an eye towards forging stronger connections between the two fields and towards better understanding teaching practices in English studies. I conclude by suggesting some further directions for research suggested by the work presented in these collections, particularly in coming to understand how a mutually beneficial relationship between teaching and scholarship can be cultivated across disciplinary borders. Michelle Tokarczyk and Irene Papoulis's Teaching Composition/Teaching Literature: Crossing Great Divides picks up Horner's debate twenty years after her collection was published, as they explicitly engage the productive (and not-so-productive) tensions among composition and literature within English departments. Christina Russell McDonald and Robert L. McDonald's Teaching Writing: Landmarks and Horizons traces the trajectory of composition-rhetoric's attention to teaching writing, while Race in the College Classroom, edited by Bonnie TuSmith and Maureen Reddy, addresses issues of race and racial identity within institutional and classroom spaces. Finally, through interviews with prolific writers and intellectuals, Gary Olson and Lynn Worsham's Critical Intellectuals on Writing illustrates some of the very particular ways that scholarship and writing are intertwined. I organize the review by first situating the composition/literature divide through my discussion of Tokarczyk and Papoulis's collection; then, after locating the three remaining books in their respective scholarly contexts, I show how each of them also bridges composition and literature teaching. I pair McDonald and McDonald with TuSmith and Reddy because each provides [End Page 190] a window into the kind of attention currently being given to pedagogical issues within English studies, as McDonald and McDonald focus on writing classrooms, while TuSmith and Reddy situate their work in a more general classroom space. Finally, I suggest that the interviews compiled by Olson & Worsham can act as pedagogical models for budding intellectuals. I conclude the review by suggesting some further directions suggested by these research practices. In 2003, literary scholar Elaine Showalter published an essay in The Chronicle of Higher Education in which she urged her literary colleagues to take more seriously the teaching of literature. In so doing, Showalter was engaging a pervasive attitude within literary studies, namely, that teaching is antithetical to one's scholarship and/or something that one should know...