NEW MATERIALS FOR THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH, THE

REPOR T RESUMESED 0 1 5 26 TE 000 185NEW MATERIALS FOR THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH, THE ENGLISHPROGRAM OF THE USOE.BY- SHUGRUE, MICHAEL F.MODERN LANGUAGE ASSN. OF AMERICA, NEW YORK, N.Y.

PUB DATE SEP 66EDRS PRICE MF.40.25 HC NOT AVAILABLE FROM EDRS. 38P.

DESCRIPTORS- *CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT, *CURRICULUM STUDYCENTERS, *ENGLISH CURRICULUM, *ENGLISH INSTRUCTION,COMPOSITION (LITERARY), EDUCATIONAL LEGISLATION, GRAMMAR,INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS, LANGUAGE, LINGUISTICS, LITERATURE,SUMMER INSTITUTES,. MLA, NCTE,

THIS REPORT FOLLOWS TWO PREPARED IN PREVIOUS YEARS BYCOORDINATORS FOR PROJECT ENGLISH AND TRACES THE CONCERNS OFTHE OFFICE OF- EDUCATION ENGLISH PROGRAM TO JANUARY 1966. ANINTRODUCTION DISCUSSES THE GENERAL OUTLINE OF ENGLISHCURRICULUM STUDIES NOW IN PROGRESS AND RECOUNTS THESIGNIFICANT LEGISLATION WHICH SUPPORTS THESE PROJECTS,SIMILAR RESEARCH IN THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES, AND SUMMERINSTITUTES IN ENGLISH. REPORTS ON EACH OF THE 25 CURRICULUMSTUDY AND DEMONSTRATION CENTERS INCLUDE A STATEMENT OF THEPURPOSE OF THE PROJECT, AND EXPLANATION OF THE PRINCIPLES ANDDESIGN OF ITS CURRICULUM MATERIALS, AND ITS CURRENT STATE OFDEVELOPMENT AND PROGRESS. THIS ARTICLE APPEARED IN THESEPTEMBER 1966 "PMLA." REPRINTS ARE AVAILABLE FROM THEMATERIALS CENTER, MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION, 62 FIFTHAVENUE, NEW YORK, N.Y, 10011, ORDER U81, AND THE NATIONALCOUNCIL OF TEACHERS OF ENGLISH, 508 SOUTH SIXTH STREET,CHAMPAIGN, ILL. 61820, ORDER NO. 03908. (DL)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION & WELFARE

OFFICE OF EDUCATION

THIS DOCUMENT HAS BEEN REPRODUCED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED FROM THE

PERSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINATING IT. POINTS OF VIEW OR OPINIONS

STATED DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRESENT OFFICIAL OFFICE OF EDUCATION

POSITION OR POLICY.

PMLAPUBLICATIONS OF THEMODERN ANGUAGEASSOCIATION-OFANIBRICA

Issued Seven Times a Year

VOLUME LXXZI SEPTEMBER 1966 (PazmuNT) NUMBER 4

NEW MATERIALS FOR THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH:THE ENGLISH PROGRAM OF THE USOE

MICHAEL F. SHUGRUE

Published by the MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA

4 Washington Place

New York, N.Y. 10003

NEW MATERIALS FOR THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH: THEENGLISH PROGRAM OF THE USOE

BY MICHAEL F. SHUGRUE

IN 1963 J. N. Hook, the first Coordinator forProject English in the United States Office

of Education, reviewed briefly the growth andcurrent status of Project English for the pro-fession ("Project English: The First Year,"PMLA, LXXVIII, September 1963, Part 2, 33-36). In 1964 Erwin R. Steinberg, the secondCoordinator, reported at length to the profes-sion on the history and prospects for researchin English funded by the Office of Education("Research on the Teaching of English UnderProject English," PMLA, txxIx, September1964, Part 2, 50-76). He incorporated into hisaccount summaries of the current status ofeach Curriculum Study Center, prepared bythe Directors of the Centers themselves.

The following report, again prepared byDirectors of the twenty-five Curriculum Studyand Demonstration Centers, brings the his-torical record of the Office of EducationEnglish Program up through January 1966.Through a special pre-printing for participantsin NDEA Summer Institutes and throughpublication in the September 1966 Directoryissue of PMLA, the profession will again beinformed of the expanding federal support forEnglish.

The curriculum materials being developedin the Study and Demonstration Centers,which are described below, range from K-12 inlanguage, literature, and comnosition, withattention to the problems of the disadvan-taged, the deaf, the average as well as the ablestudent, and the student learning English as asecond language. The Study Center at Carne-gie Institute of Technology was the first tocomplete and publish its curriculum, forgrades 10-12. The Demonstration Centers atBerkeley and at Western Reserve completedtheir contracts with the Office of Education in1965.

No record of Office of Education support inEnglish can ignore the significant step forwardtaken by the Congress and President inOctober 1964, when the National DefenseEducation Act of 1958 was extended for threeyears and amended to provide financial assis-tance to strengthen instruction in reading,English, and other subjects, in elementary andsecondary schools. The amended bill provided

1

for the purchase of special materials and equip-ment and for improved supervision in English,reading, and other subjects, as well as for thesupport of short-term or regular session insti-tutes for advanced study at institutions ofhigher education.

The new Title XI of the NDEA, underwhich the institute provision fell, authorizedthe United States Commissioner of Educationto arrange, through contracts or grants, forselected institutions of higher education tooperate English and reading institutes for ad-vanced study during the regular academic yearor the summer months. One purpose of theinstitutes, according to the Act, was "to im-prove the qualifications of individuals who areengaged in or preparing to engage in the teach-ing or supervising or training of teachers ofhistory, geography, modern foreign languages,reading, or English in the elementary orsecondary schools." In the summer of 1965, 105summer institutes in English, selected underthe direction of the third Coordinator, John C.Gerber, were held around the United States.In 1966 there are 126 institutes in English, 66in Reading, 5 in English as a Foreign Lan-guage, and 57 for Disadvantaged Youth. Whilesome 4800 teachers of English took part ininstitutes in English in the summer of 1965,nearly 5300 are participating in the summer of1966, and nearly 5700 other teachers are takingpart in related ;,nstitutes.

As part of the 1965 Institute program, andagain for 1966, the Office of Education licensedthe English Institute Materials Center, housedat MLA and sponsored by MLA and NCTE,to gather experimental materials from theCurriculum 'Study Centers and to distributethese materials to NDE A Summer Institutes.In the summer of 1965, more than five millionpages of materials from fourteen Centers weredistributed to participants in 168 Institutes.In 1966, curriculum materials from twelveCenters are being offered to participants in 254Institutes.

Mention must also be made of the passageof the act creating a National Foundation onthe Arts and Humanities by a voice vote in theHouse on 15 September 1965 and in the Senateon the next day. President Lyndon Johnson

2 New Materials for the Teaching of English

signed this historic act, Public Law 89-209, inthe Rose Garden on 29 September. The fulltext of the act appears in the December 1965issue of PMLA. Two separate national endow-ments are established (one for the Humanitiesand one for the Arts), each with a Chairmanand a National Advisory Council.

The Act also establishes a Federal Councilon the Arts and Humanities to coordinateactivities of the two endowments. The Actauthorizes $5 million a year for fiscal 1966,1967, and 1968. An additional $5 million forthe National Endowment for the Humanitiesand $2.25 million for the National Endowmentfor the Arts are authorized to match fundsdonated from private sources. A further $2.75million is earmarked for grants to the states bythe Arts Endowment. The National Endow-ment for the Humanities, headed by Dr. Barn-aby Keeney as of 1 July 1966, is authorized toprovide nonmatching grants and loans for re-search, to award fellowships and grants toinstitutions or individuals for training, to sup-port the publication of scholarly works, to pro-vide for the interchange of information, and tofoster understanding and appreciation of thehumanities.

University of California at Los Angeles

The California State Department of Educationand the University of California at Los Angeles arecurrently cooperating in a project under the direc-tion of Helen Heffernan to prepare teachers' guidesbased on sound principles of linguistics for teaci,ing English as a second language to pupils of ele-mentary schc 11 age. The guides will provide a care-fully planned, two-year sequential program of in-struction. Although major emphasis will be placedon the needs of Spanish-speaking children, theneeds of children from other language backgroundswill also be considered.

A well-planned program for teachers of Englishas a second language is urgently needed in Cali-fornia. Many California children who speak Spanishas their native language and immigrants from allparts of the world enter the schools at all ages andwith varying degrees of attainment in their previouseducation. To be successful citizens in their adoptedculture they must learn to speak English rapidlyand competently.

In addition to presenting a sequential series oflessons based on audiolingual principles of learn-ing, the guides will contain directions to help teach-ers present the lessons effectively. Backgroundmaterial on the difference between second-languagelearning and foreign-language learning will be in-cluded in the teachers' guides as well as informa-tion on the principal sources of linguistic interfer-

ence which occur when native speakers of Spanishor other languages begin to learn English. Sugges-tions for using the materials in the child's home en-vironment and in the curriculum of the school willbe provided. Because a reasonable facility withEnglish vocabulary and sentence structure mustprecede any formal exposure to reading, textbookswill not be put into the hands of children at thebeginning stages of instruction.

Four experienced elementary school teachers areworking as writers, under the direction of fourlinguists at the University of California at LosAngeles. The linguists have had experience in thepreparation of instructional materials and have par-ticipated in a successful project to prepare mate-rials on the teaching of English for use in the Philip-pines. In addition, research assistance is being p- a-vided by advanced candidates in the doctoral pro-gram in linguistics.

The Bureau of Elementary Education, Cali-fornia State Department of Education, has co-operated in planning the program and in coordinat-ing work with the schools which will test thematerial. Two years of preliminary experimentalwork carried on under the direction of the Bureauin Imperial and San Diego counties (1963-65) withfunds made available by the California State Legis-lature have provided information on successful ap-proaches to the teaching of English as a secondlanguage. Prior to launching the project, an NDEASummer Institute in English as a Second Languagewas held at the University of California at LosAngeles. One of the subsequently appointed writersin the project served as a demonstration teacherin the Institute.

The members of the writing team are currentlyenrolled in a postgraduate course of study in theteaching of English as a second language at UCLA.Scope-and-sequence plans for the guides are beingdeveloped. The writers are visiting schools enrollinglarge numbers of non-English-speaking pupils anddiscussing major problems encountered by class-room teachers. The actual writing of the guides willbe done within the framework of a seminar atUCLA. A first draft will be reproduced in sufficientquantity for use by teachers in selected schoolsaccessible to the University. Teachers using theexperimental materials will receive in-service edu-cation from the writers to assure their use of ap-propriate techniques. Evaluation of the materialswill lead to modifications in the instructional ma-terials.

The guides will be published at the end of twoyears. The preparation, publication, and utiliza-tion of these guides are intended to lead to:

1. Improvement in the quality of instruction providedfor children who do not speak English as a native language.

2. Useful information re garding the relation of lan-guage to reading and to sch)ol success.

3. Demonstration centers for college classes and in-service education of teachers 01 English as a secondlanguage.

Michael F. Shugrue 3

4. Development of four highly-trained specialists avail-able as college instructors and leaders of conferences onnon-English-speaking children.

5. Development of teachers who have participated inexperimental use of the material as resource persons forthe in-service education of other teachers.

The project began in July 1965. A final reportwill be made by 1 September 1967.

Carnegie Institute of TechnologyThe Curriculum Study Center at Carnegie Insti-

tute of Technology completed the revision of itscurriculum in the summer of 1965 and has beensubmitting it volume by volume to the U. S.Office of Education for release. Currently theUnited Business Service Company, Pittsburgh, isissuing the released volumes for sale on a non-royalty basis. These volumes have been preparedunder the direction of the staff of the center: ErwinR. Steinberg, Robert C. Slack, Beekman W. Cot-trell, and Lois S. Josephs.

The Center has a sequential and cumulative pro-gram in English for able college-bound students inthe senior high school (grades ten through twelve).The program has had seven major objectives:

1. To develop a curriculum in literature for grades tenthrough twelve which will teach the student to read withunderstanding and sensitivity, and thus provide him witha skill essential to excellent work in college;

2. To develop a composition program for grades tenthrough twelve which, in ordered sequential steps, willlead to a growing mastery of writing skills;

3. To develop a sequential language program, con-sonant with contemporary studies in linguistics, whichwill increase the student's understanding of the structure,the history, and the power of the English language;

4. To develop syllabi and other teaching materialswhich will interrelate the programs in literature, composi-tion, and language into a cumulative three-year se-quence;

5. To test the effectiveness of the cumulative se-quence by introducing it experimentally into seven highschools of diverse types and sizes in the Greater Pitts-burgh area;

6. To evaluate formally the total program by means oftests given to students in the cooperating schools.

7. To contribute toward defining a standard /or highschool English which colleges may consider in designingtheir freshman courses so that learning may continue tobe sequential and cumulative.

A member of the Department of Psychology andfour members of the Department of Englishassumed major responsibility for the program. Ineach of the three years, two of the English profes-sors taught one course at Carnegie and one sectionof the experimental program in a participating highschool, and devoted the rest of their time to de-velopment and revision of the curriculum. Theprogram included three summer planning sessions(1962-64) during which English teachers from theparticipating high schools worked with the staff.They planned detailed syllabi for the three courses

during these sessions. After each course was de-veloped, it was tried in the cooperating high schoolsduring the following academic year, and then re-vised; tried again, and then evaluated. The firstsummer planning session took place in 1962. Tenteachers from the cooperating high schools, fourJune graduates of Carnegie Tech who were enter-ing the English teaching profession, and the fivemembers of the Carnegie staff addressed themselvesto two problems: setting the goals for the wholethree-year curriculum, and designing in detail thetenth-grade course. In the summer of 1963, a sim-ilar group composed of many of the same peopledesigned eleventh- and twelfth-grade courses,which were taught and revised during the follow-ing academic year. Further revision took place dur-ing the summers of 1964 and 1965. The Centercompleted its evaluative testing program duringthe academic year 1964-65.

The first planning group agreed that the field ofEnglish encompasses three areas of study: litera-ture, composition (or communication), and lan-guage. The group saw the interrelationship of theseareas as fittingly represented by three interlockingtriangles:

Language- - -

- - --Literature

-.Communication

As the diagram indicates, only a small part ofeach of these studies is unrelated to the others: thelarger portion of each, in fact, overlaps significantlywith one or bot% of the others. In the tenth-gradecourse, the time for each of the areas was appor-tioned as follows: 56% of the class periods for in-struction in literature; 26% for instruction in com-position; 18% for instruction in language. The per-centages at the other grade levels are approxi-mately the same.

Further discussion led to the agreement that thecore of the program should be literaturethat theway to develop each course was to build its literarycore first and then to organize the study of com-position and language around that literary core.As a working definition of literature, the staff agreedthat "literature is mankind's record, expressed inverbal art forms, of what it is like to be alive." Atfirst glance, this may seem a sober definition; butsince life can be joyous or funny as well as tragic,the staff felt it to be an adequate one. They agreedfurther that the writer of literature deals with uni-versal concerns of every age and every culture, butthat he is necessarily affected by the particular timein which he lives and by the particular culture ofwhich he is a part. In the tenth-grade course, theexamination of literature concentrates upon theuniversal concerns of man; in the eleventh-gradecourse, upon the modification of those universalconcerns by particular culture patterns; and in the


twelfth-grade course, upon literary art forms,genres, and techniques. Although one of these em-phases figures more importantly than the other twoin a particular year, all three form a part of eachyear's program.

10th GradeWorld Literature

11th GradeAmerican Literature

12th GradeEnglish Literature

to examine it from a different point of view. Eachyear builds on what went before, and the approachto the literature demands ever more perceptive re-sponses. The total program is sequential, cumula-tive, and spiral. Consonant with the guiding prin-

Universal concerns of man M L

U

U

Modification by culturepattern L

M Literary art forms;genres; techniques

Thus the tenth-grade course gives primary em-phasis to the universal concerns of man as theyappear in world literature (in translation): love,heroism, human weakness, portraits of social con-ditions or practices, and the se-trch for wisdom. Theeleventh-grade course consists of American litera-ture which demonstrateF how univeral concerns aremodified by the American culture pattern fromPuritan times to the present. The approach to theAmerican literature chosen is roughly historical,

10th Grade

11th Grade

12th Grade

ciple that the entire program be taught inductively,the underlying approach to the study of literatureis textual rather than historical; the selections re-flect a concern for depth rather than for breadth.For even greater depth, the program often includesseveral works by one author when they fit thethematic structure.

The composition program is similarly sequentialand cumulative.This program considers writing as a three-part

Idea: the writer discovers,isolates, defines his

messageM M----

IMessage sent: the writer

puts it into language M

I MMessage received: the writer

modifies it according tothe needs of his reader

but looks nothing like the traditional survey.Rather, the course focuses on important aspects ofthe American character as they are revealed in ourliterature: American Puritanism, the American de-sire to get ahead in the world, American optimism,and the American social conscience. The twelfth-grade course is made up primarily of Englishliterature and gives major attention to "verbal artforms." Once again, the treatment of literature isroughly historical; but this time the focal pointsare various literary forms: tale, tragedy, epic,satire, lyric, novel, and drama of social criticism.

In each of the three years the students are askednot only to look at a different body of literature but

process. The writer must first isolate and definewhat he has to say. Ideally this process results inthe statement of a topic idea arising from evidencethat he has already observed or knows about.(When the writer later attempts to communicatehis perceptions, he must not only state his topicidea but also substantiate it with pertinent sup-porting details.)

To introduce the student to this process, theplanning group decided in the tenth grade to focusthe writing program on that part of the writingp.ocess in which the student narrows a subject toa manageable topic and then finds pertinent detailto support it. Most of these topics are relatively


simple and capable of one-paragraph development.For example, after having read Maupassant's "OldMilon," the student L asked to write a well-de-veloped answer to the questictn: "'What is one of themost important qualities of Old Milon's character?"It is clear that the student must isolate one char-acteristic and substantiate it with details from thestory. In the upper years of the program the studentis called upon to deal with more profound subjectsrequiring more complex organization, but the basicskills involved in all expository writing are givenprimary emphasis in the tenth-grade writing pro-gram.

The second step is for the writer to communicatehis ideas in effective and appropriate language.Matters such as diction, denotation, and connota-tion, though discussed at every grade level, becomethe major concerns of the eleventh-grade composi-tion program. Frequently the student's attention isdirected to the range of meaning suggested by asingle word. For example, he is asked to write onthe topic: "In the title The Great Gatsby, how do youinterpret the word great?"

The third step is for the writer to modify hismessage according to the needs of his reader. In thetwelfth grade, though still concerned with isolatingand organizing the message and communicatingit in effective language, the student is made moreaware of his reader. He is guided to this awarenessby such an assignment as "Discuss for someone whohas not read the first two books of Paradise Losttwo characteristics of Satan as portrayed by Mil-ton." Both what the student says and the way inwhich he says it will be modified by the fact thathis reader does not know Paradise Lost.

The three-year language program also has ameaningful rationale.

10th Grade

11th Grade

12th Grade

dents to identify the form classes of nonsense wordsin a paragraph concocted for that purpose; but itcalls for listing the words not as Class z, Class n,Class in, or Class zv words, but as nouns, verbs,adjectives, and adverbs. The first student worksheetattempts to unite the structural approach with thetraditional.

Language Form ClassesStudent Classroom Worksheet

The bofer manked that the sactiful doction of the nitherdepended upon the frontity of the very titious callents.He quilled them how loftly the dotion ran. With theseglikest zadines his klimpance was intrary.

Nouns Verbs Adjectives Adverbs

Assignment: Write a plain-sense version of the abovepassage.

The attempt here, of course, is to make the stu-dents aware of how much they already know aboutthe structure of the English language and to helpthem to recognize that grammatical interrelation-ships in English are primarily structural. At thesame time such a lesson requires that they reviewwhat they have learned prescriptively in earlieryearsthis time not in the same repetitious, tiredway, but from a fresh point of view.

The language emphasis in the eleventh grade ison semantics (meaning). Here the units focus onsuch matters as a definition of language, the rela-tion between language and culture, the use of thedictionary, the concept of definition, dialect,denotation, and connotation. One unit, for example,involves the students in the controversial issuesarising from the appearance of Webster's ThirdInternational Dictionary.

In the twelfth grade, the important emphases

Structure of the language S R

S Semantics; meaning

S S

Rhetoric: the effectiveuse of language

In the tenth grade, the student learns to see, inways often new to him, the underlying structure ofthe English language. Although the lessons are builtaround concepts of structural linguistics, tradi-tional grammatical terminology is often retained;the lessons attempt a practical integration of thetwo. Thus, the first language lesson uses the stan-dard structural linguistic game of asking the stu-

are on rhetoric (the effective use of language) andon the history of the English language. The studentworks through two units on the rhetoric of fictionand exposition. In addition, in close relationship toappropriate literature, he studies the changing na-ture of English as it progressed from Old throughMiddle to Modern.

Thus the program is increasingly integrated as


it moves from the tenth through the twelfth grade.In the tenth grade, the material is integrated pri-marily in the sense that there is a concern through-out with basic concepts in isolating and definingthe idea that the student wishes to communicatein his writing; and with the fundamental structure ofthe English sentence. Basing student writing on theliterature and language lessons clearly serves torelate the three areas, and this is the practice atall three grade levels. In the eleventh grade, thecomposition emphasis (putting the message intoeffective language) and the language emphasis (afocus upon semantics) go very well together.Finally, hi the twelfth grade, the compositionemphasis (modifying the message to suit the needsof the reader) reinforces the language emphasis(rhetoric); and the roughly historical approach toEnglish literature logically belongs with the studyof the history of the English language.

The design of the program allows a teacher toadhere to the overall structure of each coursewithout necessar,iy having to teach every lessonprecisely as it has been planned. When the partici-pating teach s gave each course for the first time,they made 4 ery effort to teach it according to thesyllabus. however, the second time through, theyfelt freer to adjust the lesson plans according to theneeds of their particular classes. The CurriculumStudy Center staff recommends a similar procedurefor anyone undertaking to teach the material. Thetwo staff members from Carnegie Tech who taughtthe three courses in several different schools wereparticularly convinced of the need for making ad-justments to suit the abilities and backgrounds ofthe students and the varying school conditions.

Thus the three-year curriculum, while carefullyorganized in day-to-day lesson plans to be sequen-tial and cumulative, is yet flexible enough to servethe needs of a variety of high-school situations.

Carnegie Institute of TechnologyDuring the second year of the operation of the

Curriculum Study Center at the Carnegie Insti-tute of Technology, the staff, while finding that thenew courses seemed to be meeting with a high de-gree of success when taught to able students, beganto suspect that many aspects of the program mightbe applicable to a broader segment of high-schoolstudents. Consequently the Director of the Centersubmitted a proposal to the Office of Educationcontaining a plan for testing the effectiveness of thenew program with students of average ability.The project, approved in the summer of 1964, isbeing directed by Robert C. Slack.

Under this project three schools in the City ofPittsburgh have each made available a class ofstudents of average ability to be taught the newcurriculum. The class in each school is at a differentgrade levelone tenth, one eleventh, and onetwelfth gradeso that students of average abilityare making use of the full curriculum in each of thetwo years of the project.

A second objective of this project is to discoverwhether the materials that the Center has p!,-;paredare in fact complete enough so that an able teacherwho has not been exposed to special training in oureducational philosophy and methods can teach thecourses adequately, helped only by a moderateamount of in-service consultation. Accordingly,each year three promising teachers are selected whohave no knowledge of the program. Half of theirday is devoted to graduate study in English; in theother half they are teaching one of the new coursesand keeping a careful formal record of their ey-periences with it. These teachers have been give,ithe materials and texts of the courses during thesummer before their teaching; but they have re-ceived no further advance preparation. Thus theirposition resembles somewhat that of teachers be-yond the Pittsburgh area who may wish to intro-duce the courses into their own schools and willhave to depend for guidance only upon the writtenmaterial produced at the Center.

The first year of the project has been completed.In the academic year 196445, three teachers wereengaged to teach the courses in three Pittsburghschools. Periodically they met with the Director ofthe Curriculum Study Center and discussed theprogress of their classes as well as certain modifica-tions of the courses which seemed desirable. Theteachers kept careful notes of their experiencesthroughout the school year. In the summer of1965 they were engaged to make a comprehensivewritten report of their year's experience, containingrecommendations for specific changes which willrender the courses more effective for academicstudents of average ability. The reports tooklonger than anticipated, but they are now finishedand are under consideration by the staff of theCenter. They have been conscientiously prepared,and while they indicate overall that the new coursesachieved a good measure of success with the stu-dents of average ability, they contain a number ofreservations and suggested modifications.

One result of the first year of the program cameas an unexpected dividend. The tenth- and eleventh-grade students of average ability who took theprogram in 1964-65 requested that they be allowedto continue with the new curriculum during 1965-66. Although this meant that boxes of textbookshad to be transferred from one school to another,the Center was so pleased with this response thatit was happy to comply with the students' wishes.As a result, at the end of the second year it will bepossible to see what two years of the program canaccomplish for students of average ability.

According to the plan, in the fall of 1965 a re-placement team of three other teachers was en-gaged to present the courses to average studentsduring the current school year. These teachers, alsopart-time graduate students in a Master of Arts inEnglish program, are working under conditionssimilar to those of the previous team. However,early in 1966 they will receive copies of the reports

Michael F.

of the first team of teachers, and their own coursesand final reports will undoubtedly be influenced bythese documents.

It is anticipated that the result of this projectwill be to provide help in answering two questions:(1) whether a major portion of the sequential andcumulative senior high school curriculum in Eng-lish designed for college-bound students in theupper 20% according to national norms can be use-fully taught to academic students of average abil-ity; (2) whether the materials prepared by theCurriculum Study Center of Carnegie Institute ofTechnology are in fact clear and detailed enoughso that able teachers, who have had no specialpreparation at the Carnegie Center, can presentthese courses effectively to their students. The in-tent of this program is, in short, to establish evi-dence that the curriculum developed at the Carne-gie Curriculum Study Center can be used effec-tively more widely than was originally intended.

Teachers College, Columbia University

The TESL (Teaching English as a Second Lan-guage) Materials Development Project is producingmaterials in English as a second or foreign languagefor the first three years of primary school underthe direction of Gerald Dykstra. Jointly sponsoredby the Council for Public Schools and TeachersCollege, Columbia University, the project isfinanced by the U. S. Office of Education. Becausethe TESL materials are not an end in themselves(they form the base for a variety of research en-deavors), and because they grow out of considera-tions of the necessary structural contrasts ofEnglish considered in the light of cultural andlinguistic universals, they can be referred to as"nuclear convergences" instead of materials. Butfor the purpose of avoiding another technical term,they will simply be called "the materials."

Although the entire project is concerned withresearch in a fundamental way, there is a pre-eminent reason for emphasizing just one of the re-search aspects. For twenty-four years a funda-mental idea among leaders in the field of English asa foreign or second language has been that separatematerials are required for each linguistic or culturalbackground. Clues to the differing needs have beenobtained from classroom observations of problemsand from comparisons of a description of Englishwith descriptions of background languages. Exer-cises have been prepared appropriate to the needs.These materials have raised interesting questions.The sets that have been prepared have many areasof similarity as well as many areas of difference. Thesimilarities suggest the possibility of common prob-lems for students from a variety of backgrounds.And the differences are a response to the differencesin language background of the audience for whomthe materials were prepared. Many differencesseem to develop from the different natures andbackgrounds of the authors involved. Other dif-

Shugrue 7

ferences in existing materials seem motivated moreby age differences of pupils than by their differ-ences in language background. Still other differ-ences are obviously motivated by relatively super-ficial, and almost extra-linguistic, cultural, andgeographical differences, such as names of personsand places and use of common nouns with referentsthat are limited in distribution to the communityfor which the materials are developed. This is notto say that such adjustments of materials are nothighly desirable and even necessary, but these arenot the fundamental kinds of things that leadinglinguists have in mind when they speak of the needfor linguistic comparisons before materials are de-veloped. Concern for relatively minor vocabularyadjustments could appropriately and efficientlycome after, rather than before, concern with themore fundamental adjustments.

Whether materials produced specifically for onecultural background work well in another is stilluncertain. The data we have are primarily the in-formal, haphazard observations of teachers. Thismeager evidence, so far, seems to suggest that goodmaterials prepared for speakers of one languagework quite well, if not equally well, for speakers ofother languages. One must first recognize that weneed evidence. Then it is important to recognizetl it the predictions based on comparison of lin-guistic descriptions are hypotheses and that theycan and should be tested experimentally. They canprobably be tested in many ways. We have selecteda way that ties in harmoniously with the overallneeds of the project.

In order to sharpen our attack on the nature ofthe differences that are needed for different culturalbackgrounds or different linguistic backgroundswhen one is oreparing materials, we have begunwith the assumption that culturally different indi-viduals need culturally different materials, and thatsome things are more widespread than others. Inpractical terms we build research on widespread orcommon needs in the area of language teaching bypreparing a set of materials with good presentationtechniques, which may then be used in two or moreculturally different situations with feedback toindicate to us with greater precision the differencesand the similarities in the difficulties encounteredby the two groups. If we find that, with a singleset of materials, one group has certain difficultieswhich are not shared by the other group, we willhave accomplished our first step in this research. Ifthen, in setting up new materials for the group thathad difficulty, we find that the materials needed toovercome the difficulties of that group are not suit-able, we will have begun to identify kinds of ma-terials that are appropriate to two culturally dif-ferent groups on the basis of experimental evidence.Formerly we said "the culturally different indi-vidual needs different materials," and then wentahead to predict on the basis of theory what thesedifferences were. These predictions were in realityhypotheses. We have now begun to test experi-

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mentally the hypotheses that we worked with be-fore.

Some features of language are more widespreadthan others. In fact, some types of difficulty withthe learning of English come up more often or aremore persistent than others, dependent in part ondistribution or lack of parallel features in otherlanguages. Relatively few pupils have extensivedifficulty in producing a satisfactory actualizationof a syllable initial bilabial nasal consonant /m/ inEnglish utterances. A much larger number havedifficulty in producing a satisfactory actualizationof the voiced velar nasal /4/ in syllable final posi-tion. Data of this kind can be multiplied on thebasis of teaching experience as well as on the basisof available studies of language structure andlanguage universals. In the area of linguisticreferents, the most common referent for the Englishword hand is probably a more widespread phe-nomenon than that for microphone; that for food isprobably more widespread than that for intravenousfeeding; that for water is probably more wide-spread than that for river. Study of widespreadfeatures of language and culture and study of uni-versals can give us clues to widespread problemsin learning English.

Another theoretical hr's for the formation ofthe test materials derives the assumption thatlanguages have structure. The theoretical basis isthat structural features of English must be main-tained. We are not prepared to say to what extentthey must be maintained, but while it is obviousthat a speaker may have a "foreign accent" to theextent of failing to make certain phonemic con-trasts or certain grammatical contrasts and maystill be understood, due to redundancy in the sys-tem, it is equally obvious that if none of the struc-tural contrasts are maintained a pupil will neitherspeak nor understand English.

A pedagogical basis might be developed for a sin-gle test set of EFL materials on the ground thatthe role of the teacher is to make adjustments ap-propriate to the need r; of the students, while mostappropriately the role of the materials writer is towrite suitable materials for adaptation by teachersto a range of situations.

A useful tool for feedback purposes should in-clude provision to elicit not only language practicebut also language use in situations that require cod-ing and decoding of messages. Toward this end weare incorporating some important pedagogical in-novations in the materials:

(a) They are being oriented entirely toward multiple-unit classes. The materials are prepared so carefully forclasses ,livided into groups of four that they becomemeaningless and inoperative if the class is not divided.

(b) The activities set up for the small groups alwaysinclude a superordinate, non-linguistic purpose. Theseactivities might be called games. They are not games inthe play sense but rather in the sense we use in speakingof economic games, war games, peace games, etc. The

rules are not arbitrary, but consonant with the situation.Language practice is subordinate to the purpose of theactivity.

(c) We are incorporating the "responsive environ-ments" concept, but in a social rather than a machineenvironment. This is accomplished primarily by arrangingthat all linguistic and action responses of the participantsare real responses to real situations, not pre-determined

.sponses to language drill situations.(d) Each activity, to be accepted in the materials, must

require the encoding and decoding of messages. Theremust be real communication of information that cannotbe known by the hearer except through language. Thespeaker must always have a repertoire of possible mes-sages, one of which he uses, unpredictably for the hearer,to accomplish his purpose. Conversely the hearer musthave a choice of possible action responses from which heselects the one appropriate to the message he receives.

(e) We are developing the concept of a pedagogical useof communication. Not only must communication bepresent in our activities but it must be built into a systemdesigned to work toward reinforcement of correct re-sponses and extinction of errors. Success or failure inaccomplishing the superordinate purpose serves as theframework for this function of communication. Separatemeans of checking on the speaker and on the respondermust be built into the activity.

(f) Errors can be programmed out by capitalizing onthe operations that the pupil has already mastered andusing the new material as the crucial element in thecommunication.

Other characteristics of the ;Materials develop-ment program of our project include: the emphasison universals; the plan to include samples of lin-guistically- or culturally-oriented exercises pre-pared on the basis of experimental evidence ofneed; the design for maximum usefulness evenwithout special teacher training and teachers' hand-books; the built-in-teacher education aspects of thepresentations preceding the activities; the tie-inwith physical education, music, mathematics, his-tory, geography, and other subjects. The materialsdeveloped within this project will not constitute atotal and complete course. It would be presump-tuous to make claims for them beyond their presentpurpose as feedback bait in a number of linguisticenvironments.

We have accepted about one hundred communi-cation activity units for use in our studies. Abouttwenty of them have been sent to the first develop-ment centers. They are not all that we want themto be even for feedback purposes. Arbitrary ruleshave sometimes crept in. The programming of con-tent ideas has fallen behind, crippled from the startby lack of available data. Playlets originally sched-uled for inclusion in the first-year materials havebeen eliminated because they did not work in thesmall groups without the constant supervision ofthe teacher. Physical education type activities witha "caller" in each group and music-related ac-tivities have been substituted. There are currentlyeight try-out and development centers, in NewYork City, on the Navaho reservation in NewMexico and the CI,octaw reservation in Mississippi,

Michael F.

in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, New Guinea, Nigeria,Peru, and Colombia.

In English-speaking countries most English-as-a-foreign-language classes have a variety of languagebackgrounds represented in them. In many otherparts of the world, where English is a second orforeign language, it is also common enough to finda variety of language and cultural backgroundsrepresented in one class. Materials prepared withone specific language background in mind, insofaras they were successful, would be the more inap-propriate for these current situations. But even inthose many parts of the world where pupils inclassrooms have the same language background,there are serious problems connected with a re-liance on the separate materials concept. There isan almost total lack of comparative studies ofEnglish and the background languages. Few writersare qualified to prepare materials on the basis ofcomparative studies. Many countries would findprohibitive the costs necessary to publish anddistribute the different sets of materials required.Finally, in some cases, the needs for separateapproaches based on individual differences are asgreat is or greater than those based on linguisticbackground. We need an intensive approach tomeet the practical needs in the best possible way,and we need a frontal attack on the universals prob-lem to meet some of the needs of mixed classes. Ifthe project materials serve an extra-project pur-pose, it will be in these areas.

Florida State UniversityGeneral Purposes and Procedures of the Center

Testing of three approaches to curriculum injunior high school English and of specific contentand procedures is the purpose of the CurriculumStudy Center in English at the Florida State Uni-versity, Tallahassee, directed by Dwight L. Burton.Though sequence in curriculum must be ap-proached, in general, on a kindergarten to gradetwelve basis, there is special need for concern withthe junior high school as an important transitionalunit. Considerable evidence exists that the juniorhigh school English program reveals an evengreater lack of sequence and of definition of scopethan either the elementary school or the seniorhigh school.

The Florida State Center has developed threedesigns for an English curriculum in the juniorhigh school based on. some of the most common as-sumptions, both new and long standing, underlyingcurriculum building in English. The three curriculaare being compared in a research design whichinvolves approximately 420 students from sixjunior high schools in each of the three experi-mental groups and an approximately equal numberin a control group. When the groups reach the endof the ninth grade, they will be compared in thefollowing criteria: (1) a test on the reading of fic-tion; (2) a test on the reading of poetry; (3) a test

Shugrue 9

on aspects of English linguistics; (4) two composi-tions written by each student near the end of theninth grade and rated independently by two raters;(5) two measures of student attitude and responseone given at the end of the seventh grade, the otherat the end of the ninth; and (6) a subjectiveanalysis of teacher comments and of notes takenon visits to the schools by members of the Centerstaff, already largely compiled. (Measures 1, 2, 3,and 5 are being developed in the Center. The com-positions referred to in 4 will each be rated inde-pendently.)

The Three Curricula

I. Tri-component Curriculum. In this curriculum,units in literature, language, and oral and writtencomposition are presented in each grade accordingto a sequence determined by the Center staff.Though there are specific units in each of the threeaspects of the subject, there is naturally someplanned overlapping. Writing assignments, for ex-ample, are made in units on literature.

Seventh Grade

Literature:1. Myth, legend, and folklore2. Introduction to modern imaginative forms of

literatureLanguage:

1. Semantics: I2. Lexicography3. Morphology and syntax: I

Composition:Micro-rhetoric: I

Eighth Grade

Literature:1. The novelsymbolism in fiction2. The short storyplot development3. Narrative poetry4. One-act plays

Language:1. Morphology and syntax: II2. Dialects and varieties of English

Composition:1. Micro-rhetoric: II2. Modern forms of oral communication

Ninth Grade

Literature:1. Satire2. Drama

a. Comedyb. The Classical TragedyAntigone

3. Lyric PoetryLanguage:

1. Grammar of Transformed Sentences2. Semantics: II

Composition:1. Rhetoric and composition: invention, ordering,

strategy (voice, tone, attitude)2. Oral Persuasion

II. Literature-centered Curriculum. In this cur-riculum, the "subject-matter" of literature


generalizations about human experience to whichliterary selections relateis made the focal pointof each of the six units presented in each grade. Thegeneral framework of the curriculum is provided bysix "thematic" categories taught each year in thefollowing sequence:

point for this all-important transition from thechild's world of subjective immediacy to the moreadult world of inference. Activities in literature,language, and composition aimed toward accom-plishing for individual students this transitionfurnish the specifics of this curriculum.

Seventh Grade Eighth Grade Ninth Grade

The Unknown Qualities of FolkHeroes

Deeds and Qualitiesof Men of Myth

Concern for the U nexpla lucid

Frontiers and Horizons Far Away Places The Village Frontiers in Space

Decisions Courage Responsibility Justice

Teamwork Team Leaders The Family The Team and the Individual

Man in Action Man and Nature Man Among Enemies Man Alone

Relationships Adolescents We Learn Close Adolescent Mirrors (relations with self)About Relationships

One or more selections of literature related to theunit theme are studied intensively in each unit.Work in written and oral composition grows out ofthe study of literature. Formal units in languageare not presented, but considerable attention isgiven to principles and problems of language study.Often language study also grows out of the work inliterature; work in language is developed as theteachers identify problems in the writing and speak-ing of particular classes.

III. Curriculum Based on Cognitive Processes.The subject-matter in this curriculum is again thefamiliar triad of literature, language, and oral andwritten composition. But the framework of the cur-riculum is furnished by certain cognitive processes,labeled: recognition of form, perception of meaning,relation of universals and particulars, generaliza-tion, and analogization. The pivotal concern iswith the transition from what Jean Piaget hascalled "concrete operations" to "formal opera-tions." Piaget defines "operations" as the ways inwhich an individual works out order. An "opera-tion" is a type of action, a direct manipulation ofobjects or an internal manipulation of symbolsrepresenting things and relations. In other words,"operations" are the process of absorbing dataabout the real world into the mind and then of or-ganizing the data to use them selectively in the solu-tion of problems. Piaget's work with children hasdefined the stage of "concrete operations" as beingabout that from age seven to age twelve. The childsees order in the immediate world. He learns to per-ceive comparison and contrast. He senses the logicof classes and relations. The years from age twelveto fifteen Piaget calls the stage of "formal opera-tions." Now the individual uses hypotheticalreasoning and perceives the world outside his im-mediate personal experience. Obviously, then, thejunior high school years become the chronological

Study of Specific Content and ProceduresThe comparisons of the three curricula on the

several criteria listed earlier should be illuminating,but it is possible that the testing of certain spe-cific subject matter and procedures may be evenmore significant. The Center staff believes thatsequences in English cannot be developed withany assurance until there has been careful testingof content and teaching procedures with differentkinds of students.

The six junior high schools participating in thisstudy represent a variety of student populations,ranging from a semi-slum group to a suburbangroup representing a high socio-economic level.Several specific types of content and several teach-ing procedures have been selected for special studyin each of the schools. This general phase of thestudy should lead to a larger-scale investigationlater.

Aspects of content being studied both in terms ofstudent interest and general response and of stu-dent ability to grasp concepts include: concepts insemantics, sentence transformations, satire, sym-bolism in literature, plot structure in fiction,tragedy, and irony. Procedures receiving specialstudy are: inductive method in study of individualselections of literature, procedures in the inventionphase of composition, and small-group proceduresin study of the novel.

Present Status of the ProjectThe tryout of the curricula for seventh grade was

completed in June 1965. During the 1964-65 aca-demic year two measures of student response andevaluation, one based on the semantic differentialtechnique, were developed. These two instrumentswere administered to all students in the experi-mental classes in late May 1965. At that time, also,an evaluation conference was held by the Center


staff and al; coordinators, principals, and teachersin the participating schools. During the summer of1965, data from the two measures were analyzed,along with teacher comments, student materials,and notes of staff members on observations in theschools. The following tentative conclusioi.s weredrawn:

1. Student response to the three experimental curriculawas generally enthusiastic in all si:c schools. The responseto Curriculum in (based on cognitive processes) wassomewhat more enthusiastic than response to the othertwo curricula.

2. Though achievement measures were not admin-istered, it was the subjective judgment of participatingteachers that progress in written composition was greaterin the three experimental curricula than in the controlgroup. The "why" of this remains unanalyzed.

3. Some of the concepts presented in the unit onsemantics in Curriculum i simply were not grasped bythe students in most schools. This information has proveduseful in constructing the semantics unit for grade nine.Content in semantics is abstract and amorphous andmust be approached with caution in the junior high school.

4. In general, probably, students in the seventh gradeare capable of handling more mature literature than thestaff of the Center had anticipated. An important dis-tinction, however, must be made between surface,"public" responses to literary selections and personal or"private" responses. That is, a number of students areable to make correct, approved responses to selectionswithout experiencing any kind of personally rewardingexperience with the selection.

5. Concepts in language and micro-rhetoric must bereinforced by much practice and multiple explanation andillustrations. In general, the seventh graders were notgiven enough time for practice and reflection.

6. The sequence in composition (micro-rhetoric) mustbe extremely gradual. Materials and procedures in micro-rhetoric, adapted from work of the Nebraska Center,were generally successful, but the incremental steps inthe sequence need to be made even smaller.

7. A highly inductive approach to individual selectionsof literature aroused interest on the part of both able andless able students. The effect of this method on thestudents' ability to read literature has not yet been deter-mined.

8. To the considerable surprise of the Center staff, thegap between achievement and response of culturally de-prived students and more fortunate students was notnearly as wide as the staff had anticipated. In the studyof language and literature, the factor of cultural depriva-tion needs careful analysis. The study of literature maywell be a common bond among students of various socio-economic levels.

9. True student interest and motivation can begenerated through consideration of themes or generaliza-tions concerning human experience with which adolescentsare genuinely involved as they consider values in theirown lives.

In addition to the two measures of student atti-tude and response mentioned earlier, the test ofthe reading of poetry has been completed. The testconsists of ten short poems, supposedly graduatedin difficulty, each followed by multiple-choicequestions. The test has been given wide trial andyields a reliability above .90. The test of the read-

ing of fiction has been completed in tentative formand will now be tried out in several schools. Thetest, based on the reading of a short story byWalter Van Tilburg Clark, is similar to one con-structed earlier at the Curriculum Center at theCarnegie Institute of Technology.

Approximately eighty per cent of the studentswho completed the experimental curricula in theseventh grade are enrolled in the eighth-grade ex-perimental classes. The eighth-grade curricula arebeing tested during this school year. The onlydifficulty so far is that the material on syntax inCurriculum i and 6 me of the linguistic content inCurriculum III are proving highly difficult for anumber of the students. The ninth-grade programsare in preparation at the present.

Gallaudet CollegeThe Gallaudet College English Curriculum De-

velopment Center, under the direction of HarryBornstein, is presently in its second year of work onthe preparation of a secondary level curriculum fordeaf students. Aside from the special learning prob-lems of deaf students, a second characteristic ofGallaudet's work is most unusual: most of the deafstudents in the United States who can function atthe secondary level with the English language areenrolled in the college's preparatory program.Thus, these students and their teachers representa very special population. It is hoped that researchwith this special population will transfer to thethinly spread and limited secondary school effortswith deaf students throughout the United States.

The curriculum revision effort will be based oninputs from these principal sources: (1) the peda-gogical use of elements of structural linguistics, (2)the amalgamation of simple mathematical ideas orlogic where appropriate, (3) the exploitation of pastanalyses of the deaf students' English as guides forexercise type and frequency, and (4) the utilizationof appropriate second language teaching method-ologies.

The curriculum effort is expected to last aboutthree-and-a-half years. During the first year themembers of the Center familiarized themselvesmore thoroughly with the sources mentioned aboveand laid plans for the curriculum effort. Some sam-ple exercises were introduced for informal classroomtryout. Statistical analyses of the language be-havior of the students were made.

A sizable number of exercises was created duringthe summer of 1965 for the current academic year.A one-week training session with teachers coveringthe logic and the use of these materials was carriedout before the beginning of the school year. Duringthe current academic year, exercise generation andrevision continues. Classroom assessment of all ofthese materials on a largely informal basis isroutinely followed.

Statistical analyses reveal quite clearly that stu-dent differences in the ability to use the language


were not si nilar to the maturation changes orgrowth of hearing students found by Kellog Hunt.Indeed, because deaf students make so many mis-takes with the most elementary forms of the Eng-lish language, it may be that the analytical pro-cedures developed by Hunt are not even applicableto the analysis of the writing of deaf students.These findings would suggest that the "more usual"methods of instruction in English would not be ofmuch value to deaf students. More specifically, itseems doubtful that a mere increase in unstructuredand uncontrolled exposure to complex materialswill help the deaf student very much, if at all.

Although students are sectioned by ability inthe preparatory program, the new material is beingused in some degree in all sections. It was designedto have four main parts: "Sentence patterns,""Sentence patterns subordinated," "Field forma-tion," and "Words in fields and patterns." In thefirst units sentences are held to three fields, oneword per field to teach sentence kinds: transitive,intransitive, linking, and describing; that is, inpartly familiar symbols,

N V N, N V X (adv.), N V(be) N and N V (be) X (adj.)

Later units teach the addition of second and thirdfields in the complement, the use of sentence modi-fiers outside the pattern proper, zero N-field impera-tive patterns, also zero X-field intransitive, andexpletive transformations. Lessons, exercises, andassignments in this as in all four parts are designedto teach the principle clearly and through drill in1) marking contrasting structures, 2) manipulatingstructures by filling blanks and making para-phrases or transformations, and 3) controllingstructures by composing sentencesto lead tolanguage mastery.

Experience with the first part indicates need forminor revision. All exercises have some items thatgive trouble at the wrong places, and many needsimplification or duplication with simplified vocabu-lary for lower sections. More important, a defectin organization is coming to light. In revision eitherof the following steps will be taken or a combinationof both. First, it may be well to begin with drillson all the forms of the class words, on the numberof nominal fields (of one and two words), and onsubject-verb agreement, and on the derivativeaffixes which relate noun, verb, adjective, and ad-verb. Second, it may be well to introduce thesimpler lessons of "Field formation" (part 3) atappropriate places in the first part, "Sentencepatterns." Finally, generation and revision of ma-terial continues in the light of classroom experience,and earlier efforts to find and generate reading andrhetorical material keyed to points in the outlinewill be increased.

University of GeorgiaThe English Curriculum Study Center at the

University of Georgia has been involved since July

1963 in planning a curriculum in written composi-tion for kindergarten through grade six. The cur-riculum design includes defining objectives, pre-paring units which will achieve these objectives,and evaluating the materials which are prepared.

Research on the behavior of children from in-fancy through age twelve offered assistance in de-fining purposes, particularly research which iden-tified needed changes in the writing patterns ofchildren. Studies which examined extensive sam-ples of children's writing indicated excessive stresson the use of personal experiences, imaginativecomposition, and letters at the expense of exposi-tory writing, and recommended that pupils begiven continuous practice in writing that requiresskill in thinking, planning, organizing, and compos-ing, especially writing that requires the extendeddevelopment of a single idea or point of view.

An interdisciplinary study of philosophy, psy-chology, linguistics, sociology, anthropology, andmethodology revealed that scholars have untilnow infrequently participated in the developmentof curricula for elementary schools. Consequently,the teaching of composition in the elementaryschool has often dealt inadequately and incorrectlywith pertinent contemporary knowledge. The studyfurther revealed that programs in written composi-tion gave little attention to planned sequences inlearning. Also, the conditions under which childrenusually write have not contributed to attitudesabout writing that encourage optimum effort andlearning.

Through the process of individual study and re-search, seminars, and discussions, working paperswere prepared on language and the process of com-posing. These papers included such topics asLanguage, the Person and Society, Language De-velopment of Children from Five to Twelve,Psychological Concepts Essential for the EffectiveTeaching of Language, Written Composition in theElementary School, the Nature of Language, theConcept System, and the Composing Process.These papers, including bibliographies, were cir-culated to teachers in the ten cooperating ele-mentary schools prior to the first conference heldin May 1964. Principals and teachers of kinder-garten and first grades in the selected elementaryschools met for two days of orientation in the workof the Center and for an introduction to the prepa-ration of curriculum materials in written composi-tion. The schools represent the diverse communi-ties in the southeastern region: industrialized urban,small town, rural, mountain, Piedmo , coastalplain, public, and private. Some have had theservices of language consultants, others have not.They are similar in an expressed desire to improvethe teaching of written composition.

After two months of study on what language is,what is important and significant about it, therole of language in a culture and in 2,'At life of aperson, these s: teachers began to express basic

Michael F.

values that suggested desirable patterns of pupilbehavior and to formulate objectives for the cur-riculum in written composition consistent withthese values. Each objective indicated a two dimen-sional aspect: behavior of the learner and contentof English in which the learner's behavior operated.The statement of objectives established criteria forselecting content, learning activities, and teachingprocedures. At the close of the two-week conferencein July 1964, a tentative statement of objectivesand a list of experiences whereby kindergarten andfirst-grade children would attain each objectivewere distributed for use in the cooperating schools.

During the 1964-65 school year, the staff, underthe direction of Mary J. Tingle and Rachel S.Sutton, visited cooperating schools to work withindividual teachers and total faculties to examineoral and written samples of children's language. Tochange basic attitudes of children and teachersabout language requires continuous long-rangework. Each school has therefore been encouragedto develop a plan for obtaining and examining con-tinuously language samples of its pupils. The re-search assistants have experimented with differentways of measuring changes in patterns of pupil be-havior. After these measures have been validatedin other schools, they are used in cooperating class-rooms.

Teachers from the second and third grades beganputting together learning experiences in contin-uous, sequential, and integrated form. Concepts inlanguage became the organizing elements to whichwork going on in other fields was related. Sourceunits made it possible to prepare materials fromwhich the teacher might select for use with a par-ticular pupil. Units in tentative form have beendeveloped on vocabulary, language structure, com-position, history of the language, the dictionary,and levels of abstraction for different levels ofmaturity.

A typical source unit includes a statement of ob-jectives, expected level of development of majorconcepts, learning experiences for attainment ofobjectives, evaluative experiences, and references,including books, slides, radio and television pro-grams, films, filmstrips, pictures, and recordings.Units written during the past summer are beingused and revised this year, and additional ones arebeing prepared.

Hunter College of the City Universityof New York

Gateway English

The Hunter College Curriculum DevelopmentCenter in English was established in 1962 withthe financial support of the U. S. Office of Educa-tion and Hunter College of the City University ofNew York for a five-year period. The name of theCenter, Gateway English, was chosen to suggest itscentral purpose: to serve those junior high school

Shugrue 13

students who are educationally disadvantaged bydeveloping an English curriculum that will capturetheir interest and facilitate their learning in theEnglish language arts.

The Gateway English curriculum is designed tocompensate for some of the deprivations of under-privileged children and youth and to capitalize ontheir resources, within the framework of the En-glish language arts. An English curriculum plannedwith the needs of these students in mind can,without invading the domain of the guidancecounselor, include in the literature program workswith heroes with whom they can easily identify,which interpret the world they live in, which in-corporate minority group heroes and histories inthe myth of our culture. It is probably necessary tosay, although it should not be, that a literature pro-gram so selected would be desirable for all students,not merely for the disadvantaged. An English cur-riculum planned with the language differences ofunder-privileged minorities in mind will begin bycapitalizing on their spontaneity and metaphoricinventiveness by encouraging oral and writtenexpression. It will, however, make a special effortto give students an understanding of social classdifferences as well as regional differences in Ameri-can English and to motivate them and assist themto acquire socially approved speech.

The essential teaching strategies emphasized inGateway English are also designed with the needsof under-privileged and under-achieving studentsin mind. The method of inquiry and repeated ex-periences in observing, classifying, comparing,generalizing, in formulating chronological sequencesand relationships, are employed throughout theseunits in an effort to help students achieve thoselearning skills which are essential if they are toovercome their educational disadvantage. Becauseunder-privileged students tend to have limited facil-ity in handling verbal abstractions, visual aides areused extensively to introduce concepts in languageand literature.

Gateway English curriculum materials are organ-ized in units, primarily thematic in design. Eachunit comprises an anthology for students and amanual for teachers. The manuals include an intro-duction to the rationale and aims of the unit, dailylesson plans, exercises, and tests. Films, filmstrips,transparencies, and audio-tapes specified in the unitare provided for each experimental class. An an-notated list of supplementary books for students'independent reading is supplied each teacher, andcooperating schools are urged to provide these booksas classroom selections for each experimental class.

Now in its fourth year, under the direction ofMarjorie B. Smiley, the Hunter College EnglishCurriculum Center has completed a year's pilottesting of seventh-grade units in selected New YorkCity classrooms. The seventh-grade units havebeen revised on the basis of this experience and arebeing retested in these schools and in experimental


classes in Miami, Florida, and in San Diego,California. During the present year, 1965-66,eighth-grade units will be field tested in the sameselected New York City schools. Ninth-grade unitsare in progress.

The seventh-grade units, "A Family is a Way ofFeeling," "Who Am I?" and "Coping," center onliterature dealing with personal and familialthemes, or with literature in which a social themeis presented in these more intimate contexts. Eachof these anthologies has a range of literary types:verse, short story, drama, non-fiction, and excerptsfrom longer works. These three units are supple-mented by a fourth, "Stories in Verse," which in-cludes selections from contemporary popular songto folksong, art ballad, and other humorous andserious verse narratives. Each unit incorporates ac-tivities in listening and in oral and written composi-tion as well as in directed reading.

The eighth-grade themes have a somewhatbroader social focus, though the literature, as inthe seventh grade, is drawn principally from con-temporary American literature. Three of theeighth-grade units, "The American West," "New-comers," and "Two Roads to Greatness: AbrahamLincoln and Frederick Douglass," have themes thatcorrelate with the study of American history; theirintent is to develop through literature dominantconcepts and myths in the American experience.Historical fiction, the Western as a literary type,and a variety of literary approaches to biographyare introduced in these units. At the time of thiswriting the staff is considering whether the begin-ning study of regional, social class, and foreigndialects planned for the eighth grade will be pre-sented in lessons incorporated in the thematic twitslisted above, or will be introduced in a separateunit on American dialects. The poetry unit for theeighth grade, "Creatures in Verse," stresses meta-phor and point of view. Increasing attention tocomposition is given in all eighth-grade units.

Projected ninth-grade units in the GatewayEnc;ish curriculum will deal with the literature ofethics and social protest. A unit on the nature ofAmerican English, and, it is hoped, practice tapesto assist students in acquiring a socially-approveddialect will be included in the program next year.


Bilingual Readiness in Early School Years(Finocchiaro)

Introduction

Three significant problems in the American socialand political scene which have not been givensufficient consideration in educational programsacross the nation were at the root of our sponsor-ship of the Bilingual Readiness Project.

One problem is related to the increasingly dy-namic role of the United States in world affairs and

the resultant need for more Americans to learnforeign languages. The idea that the acquisition ofone or more foreign languages was not merely acultural adornment but a major psychological andpolitical weapon had been gaining currency amongour national leaders in the last decade. Whilerecognition of this need motivated some adminis-trators to introduce FLES programs in many sec-tions of the country, these were usually establishedin the third and fourth grades when many childrenhave already passed the ideal age for learning aforeign language and for ,developing inter-culturalunderstanding. Research studies have pointed con-clusively and consistently to the fact that theoptimum age for acquirin/ near native ability in asecond language, even in a monolingual learningenvironment, is between four and ten.

The second problem has been that of the accul-turation of the million or more Spanish-speakingpeoples who have come to the continental UnitedStates since 1940. Despite our social philosophy de-emphasizing the melting-pot concept, these peoplewere being forced, as had been other immigrantsbefore them, to give up their language and cultureand thus their sense of belonging and identity.

Far from having been reduced because of agenerally growing social awareness, traumatic ex-periences which the second generation of immigrantfamilies face seem to have increased a hundredfoldin the schools. While the reasons for this phe-nomenon would always have been of interest tosociologists and psychologists, statistics related tohigh delinquency and poor school achievement werecompelling school systems to examine some of thecauses more closely and to try to find solutions.With only a few notable exceptions, nowhere in thereported solutions was there sufficient recognitionof the possible advantages to themselves of the re-tention of Spanish language and culture amongSpanish-speaking children and of the possible con-tribution the Spanish-speaking community couldmake in solving the problem of helping Americansacquire other foreign languages. Efforts have gen-erally been directed toward teaching these childrenEnglish and in most cases preventing them fromusing Spanish during the school day. These effortsignore the fact that the children could have beengiven a feeling of success and status through theuse of their native Spanish not only in programs forthem but also in programs for continental Ameri-cans. This feeling of pride and success, experi-mentation has shown, carries over to their learningof English and other curriculum areas.

Another movement in the 1960's, guaranteeingthat Negro children in schools would have thesame opportunities as other children, made us feelthat it would be morally right and educationallysound to include a large percentage of Negrochildren in any project that we would undertake.FLES programs have generally been offered onlyin classes for intellectually gifted children, gifted-


ness being based on I.Q. and reading scores. Be-cause of factors with which we are all familiar, intoo few I.G.C. classes have there been sizeablenumbers of Negro children.

Over and above language considerations we knowthat desirable attitudes in children are best fos-tered in early childhood before prejudices are feltby some and acquired by others. Desirable attitudesinclude, primarily, positive self-images on the partof Negro and Puerto Rican children, a respect ofother children for them, and a mutually acceptingrelationship among the three groups.

Objectives of the Project

After study of the literature in the field, ob-servation in urban schools in which predominantpatterns of pupil placement show Spanish-speakingchildren (often non-English-speaking upon admis-sion to school) in classes with continental Americanchildren, both Negro and white, and discussion withsociologists, linguists, and educators, it was decidedto sponsor a two-year Project in the kindergartenand first year in which the following objectiveswould be emphasized: the development of bilingualreadiness in both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking children, and the fostering of positiveattitudes toward and respect for one's own nativelanguage and culture as well as the language andculture of other groups. More specifically theProject was to attempt to: (a) stimulate Spanish-speaking children toward comprehension of andcommunication in English as quickly as feasible;(b) stimulate English-speaking children towardcomprehension of and communication in Spanish;(c) develop this language readiness within theframework of the existing curriculum of the kinder-garten and first grade; and (d) utilize the naturalpride in one's own cultural heritage and language asthe springboard from which to make the transitionto another culture and language.

Since bilingual programs in the early grades arenot generally available except in countries such asPuerto Rico, where the total learning situation andthe language learning objectives are different fromthose in the Continental United States, we hopedthat our efforts would enable us 1) to make con-tributions to the growing literature on the effects ofbilingualism on learning; 2) to develop an approachand a methodology for a program in which twolanguages would be taught simultaneously by oneteacher; 3) to prepare a set of materials for use insuch a program; 4) to experiment with formal andinformal instruments of evaluation in order tomeasure growth in language and in desirable atti-tudes.

We hoped too that a successful program wouldstimulate an awareness among educators thatforeign language readiness had as much place in anearly childhood program as reading or mathematicsreadiness, thus encouraging school systems toinitiate foreign language programs in primary

grades. We expected too that colleges and uni-versities would become increasingly aware of theneed for developing a high degree of bilingual com-petence among their students. Finally, in a nationlike ours, which places a great premium on parentparticipation in education, we expected to demon-stt:9P that a bilingual readiness program wouldengender parent enthusiasm and could point to-ward new directions in parent cooperation and com-munity acceptance of minority groups. Paren-thetically, it is important to note that in commu-nities where the Program is in operation the pres-ence of Spanish-speaking peoples is now consideredan asset. This was not always true in the past.

Administrative Procedures

1. The program is carried out in three schools in aschool district having large numbers of Spanish-speakingand Negro children. Since its inception, the Project hasbeen divided into two sections; Section F, operating intwo schools under Mary Finocchiaro and Section K,operating in one school under Paul King.

2. Kindergarten and grade one classes contain aminimum of twenty-five children. Every attempt is madeto place eight or nine Spanish-speaking children, eight ornine Negroes, and eight or nine other children in aclass.

3. A bilingual specialist meets with the classes (sixclasses in Section F) five times a week, fifteen minutesper day.

4. The regular classroom teacher remains in the roomduring the "bilingual" lesson so that the lesson can be anoften referred-to activity during the remainder of theschool day.

5. Where possible, the same children remain in theProgram for two yearskindergarten and first year.

6. Tests of language ability are given to each childindividually before admission to the program. Spanish-speaking children are tested both in Spanish and English.The tests are given solely to enable us to measure theirgrowth in language comprehension and production duringthe two-year period. No children are excluded from theProgram.

7. Tests were given at the end of the first year inSpanish and English to both groups of children.

8. Sociograms, flow charts, and other socio-metrictechniques are being utilized to evaluate attitudes.

9. Observers visit the bilingual classrooms frequentlyto observe the growth of children in attention span,listening, ability to follow directions, ability to repeat(based on teacher's model), and the ability to respond inSpanish or English to stimuli given in Spanish or English.

10. There have been orientation meetings with schoolprincipals involved and with the classroom teachers.

11. Since the Project is carried out in cooperation withthe New York City Board of Education, numerous meet-ings have been held with the Director of Early ChildhoodEducation and the Director of Research.

12. Bilingual Readiness Staff meetings were held oncea week. Since procedures have now been firmly estab-lished, they are held once a month. The New York CitySupervisor of Early Childhood Programs attends all themeetings. The Staff consists of a psychologist, a cur-riculum specialist, a curriculum writer, a music specialist,a language specialist, and the bilingual teacher. Staff con-ferences are devoted to a discussion of the curriculum


content as observed in the actual classroom situation inorder to ensure possible modification in future prepara-tion, and to reports on reactions of children, teachers,parents, and school administrators.

Curriculum Design

1. The 'bilingual" program is directly related to theK curriculum of the kindergarten and first years. The"themes" utilized for the teaching of language are thosenormally used in the kindergarten and first years; e.g.,the classroom, the school, our family, our friends, ourpets, playing together, our community, the seasons, theholidays.

2. The "themes" are introduced and developedthrough bilingual stories, sor :gs, dances, and games.

3. The "themes" provide the language patterns andthe vocabulary which are developed in a variety of wayswithin that theme and which are reintroduced, wherelogical, in subsequent themes.

4. The sequence of Spanish language learning is: (a)the children listen to the teacher as she tells a story,sings a song, or acts out a dance. Meaning is facilitatedthrough the use of pictures, real objects, toys, and ges-tures. Sometimes a summary of the story or song is givenin English. When necessary, an English equivalent or aword or expression is given. (b) The children together,or individual children, respond to a Spanish stimulus bydramatizing some action. (c) The children repeat or re-spond in chorus to a Spanish stimulus. The teacher modelsthe response desired. (d) Individual children ask oranswer questions posed by the teacher or by other indi-vidual children.

S. Spanish-speaking children act as "informants"when Spanish is the language being emphasized at themoment; English-speaking children, when English isbeing emphasized.

6. Initial presentation in Section F is always "live."7. Activities that demand the highest degree of child

participation and linguistic comprehension are engaged in.8. A conscious effort is made to choose stories and

pictures with which children of minority groups canidentify and which will give them status in the eyes oftheir peers.

9. In each fifteen-minute class period it is expectedthat, in addition to greetings and salutations (in Spanishand English), the bilingual teacher will review familiarsongs, stories, and playlets, and that she will introducesomething new (a new concept, new language items, ornew ways of using previously taught language items with-in the current theme or center of interest).

Work Done to Date

1. Observation forms, curriculum content forms, dailylesson forms have been prepared.

2. All kindergarten units have been prepared.3. First-year programs have been completed to the

end of December 1965. Themes, songs, and stories toJune 1966 have been selected.

4. All "props" for the year have been gathered.S. Two films have been made.6. Culminating activities showing the highlights of the

kindergarten program were held for parents, communityleaders, and other classes at the end of June 1965.

Plans for the Future1. The units for kindergarten and first year have to be

revised and written in final form based on the commentsof the observers and bilingual teacher.

2. Materials have to be duplicated for wider dissemi-nation.

3. Three films and several city-wide conference-demonstration programs are planned.

4. Testing for language and attitudes has to be con-ducted.

5. Teacher, parent, and community reaction will besolicited, interpreted, and reported.

6. All forms and materials will be revised so that theywill have validity in any section of the country wherethese materials may be introduced.

We intend to take a hard look at our materialand to suggest content and activities to teachers inother areas where bilingual programs would bebeneficial. If the program is expanded, we wouldlike teachers to feel that they need no special talentsexcept a reasonable knowledge of both Spanish andEnglish and a conviction that a program of thiskind will yield tangible and intangible benefits tochildren, and thus to society.


Bilingual Readiness in Primary Grades (King)The Bilingual Readiness Project aims to demon-

strate that the need of the young non-Englishspeaker to gain a good command of English in amonolingual American society and the need ofthe young native-English speaker to speak a for-eign language in a multilingual world society canbe made to support and reinforce each other ratherthan conflict with one another, as they often do inmany classrooms in the United States.

The Project is based on the following observa-tions: (1) A child's language aptitude is greatestduring pre-school and primary school years; (2) Afive-year-old child is still relatively free of negativeattitudes, cultural and lingual; (3) Young childrencan often learn more from their peers than fromadults; (4) A "minority" of 25-50% of native-Spanish speakers whose English language skillvaries from zero to near fluency is no longer justanother group of immigrants ready to be moldedinto the English-only stream of the Americanclassroom. Such proportions create their own prob-lems of language and attitudes, and inverselyaffect the attitude of the English-speaking peerstoward another culture and language.

The Bilingual Readiness Project, under the direc-tion of Paul and Eva King, is working to demon-strate that two language groups within one class-room can be utilized to develop (1) bilingual readi-ness in English as well as in Spanish among bothlanguage groups; (2) positive attitudes and respectfor one's own native language and culture as wellas the language and culture of other ethnic groups.

Three public schools in New York City's SchoolDistrict 5 provided a total of eight kindergartensduring the project's first year, and a total of sixkindergartens and four grade one classes duringthe second year for participation in the program.


Each classroom contained a large Spanish-speak-ing minority, a large English-speaking, white, mid-dle-class minority, and a large English-speakingNegro minority. No selections were made with re-gard to intelligence, age, emotional adjustment,socio-economic background, readiness, or aptitude.The program was carried out by a bilingual teacherspecialist on a fifteen-minute-per-day basis.

Because the time limitation required some de-cision as to program content, it was decided toconcentrate on those areas of early childhood ac-tivities where language communication, both pas-sive and active, was most engaged in by all of thechildren: story telling and dramatization, singingand other musical and rhythm activities, and inter-action games. Program preparations started monthsbefore the classroom activities with selection andadaptation of materials. Experience indicated theneed for continuous revisions and improvements.The long-range as well as week-to-week programplanning gave the Demonstration Project experi-mental and developmental characteristics.

Once it was decided that the children's picture-story and its many variations (telling and retelling,role playing, dramatizations, pantomime, pup-petry, musical adaptations, choral responses, etc.)would, for the present, form the central bilingualtheme of a lesson unit, certain elements were lookedfor in the selection of the stories: (1) the story hadto be worth telling; (2) it had to have sound emo-tional and psychological appeal to children regard-less of their ethnic or socio-economic background;(3) the pictures had to be of high artistic qualityyet simple and "telling," since this visual elementformed the unifying factor in the children's bilingualexperience; and (4) the story had to contain aminimum number of words and a maximum numberof pattern repetitions for optimal language learning.

Even the best of American children's storybooksas well as the newer, controlled vocabulary storieshad to be simplified and pa.. terned further; illustra-tions had to be enlarged (a 14' X18' format is used);and even fine pictures had to be devoid of detailswhich could confuse the specific lingual communica-tions, yet had to convey the meaning of the story.

Either target language has come to be used inseveral specific and repetitive ways which thechildren have learned to expect. All programs areso designed that the language emphasis can beinterchanged to meet best the classroom needs ofboth language groups. Spanish, for instance, mightbe used as an introduction and conclusion for thestory, as an occasional "audience aside" during thestory telling, and as a comprehension check byway of questions following the story. English, inturn, would be the lingual vehicle for the actualtelling of the story. This built-in flexibility alsomakes it possible to adjust to growth in languagedevelopment.

The most exciting part of the program appears tobe the original presentation of stories. To the

English-speaking children an all-Spanish presenta-tion, for instance, seems to be an intellectual chal-lenge and an exciting puzzle to be solved. TheSpanish-speaking children, in turn, listen eagerly,obviously enjoying a story told in their nativelanguage. These positive feelings form the basis formotivation to communicate in either language.

Bilingual songs and action games also are chosento relate to the story theme, and a song or game isfrequently created specially to highlight languagepatterns or vocabulary of the story. In addition tobilingual stories, songs, and games, the childrenengage every day in some pattern practice. Here,as in all teacher-pupil dialogue activities of theprogram, the bilingual teacher attempts to stimu-late or cue each child in either target language with-out exerting any pressure. The children are en-couraged to participate actively according to theirabilities. Sometimes this participation takes theform of a bodily response, sometimes mimicry in thetarget languages, sometimes a choral response, andsometimes a creative response in the native or tar-get languages. In this manner the children come tofeel that ideas and feelings can be communicatedin a number of ways, through any number oflanguages. The simultaneous aspects of the pro-gram can be increased through properly appliedelectronic instrumentation. It is possible, for in-stance, to present a bilingual story so that thenative-Spanish speakers hear it exclusively inEnglish, while, at the same time, the native-Englishspeakers hear only the Spanish version; yet theentire class remains together engaged in the sameactivity.

All kindergarten and grade one teachers partici-pated actively in the program and expressed a de-sire to expand it through follow-up activities oftheir own, beyond the fifteen-minute-per-day limi-tation. Tape recorders, headphones, and cartridgetapes containing recordings of all the songs andaction music of the program were set up in someclassrooms and used by regular classroom teachers.Parents of all ethnic and racial groups, as well asschool administrators, supported the program withenthusiasm. This seems significant at a time whenthe New York City school system, like so manyothers, finds itself in the midst of pressures fromvarious groups. The English-speaking parents, bothWhite and Negro, have embraced the project as awelcome enrichment program; the Spanish-speak-ing parents have expressed warm feelings for theprogram. One of the major areas for further studyis the need for FL teacher training in early child-hood education. Preliminary investigation hasshown that practically no institutions or certifica-tion boards provide for a combination of earlychildhood and language training, not even forFLES teachers; yet the similarities between theprinciples guiding early childhood development andthe principles guiding language learning are quiteclear. A pre-FLES training program will have to


become a reality if language instruction is to takefull advantage of the inherent FL readiness in theearly years.

University of IllinoisISCPET is a condensed acronym for the Illinois

State-Wide Curriculum Study Center in the Prepa-ration of Secondary School English Teachers. Asthat mouth-filling designation suggests, ISCPETdiffers from the other Centers in that it concen-trates not on curriculum for pupils but on curricu-lum for teachers and prospective teachers. TwentyIllinois colleges and universities, responsible asa group for preparing five to six per cent of thejunior and senior high school English teachers ofthe United States, have combined their resourcesfor two major purposes: to evaluate systematic im-provements in their own programs for preparingteachers, and to conduct a number of specialstudies designed to answer some of the especiallyvexing questions about teacher preparation.

ISCPET began operation in August 1964 andwill continue through July 1969. Its director is J. N.Hook, Professor of English, University of Illinois;its associate director, William H. Evans, AssociateProfessor of English Education, University ofIllinois; and its research associate, Paul H. Jacobs,formerly supervisor of English for the State ofFlorida, part of whose ISCPET assignment wasdescribed, only half-facetiously, as the responsibil-ity to read and digest everything that has ever beenwritten about the preparation of English teachers.Hook and Evans are two of the members ofISCPET's Executive Committee; the other threeare from other institutions, and currently are Pro-fessors John Gerrietts, Loyola; Justus Pearson,Illinois Wesleyan; and Roy Weshinskey, SouthernIllinois.

Each institution has designated two institutionalrepresentatives, one from English and one fromEducation. Since English and Education must co-operate in order to effect significant curricularchanges, this dual representation was built into theCenter's proposal, and so far it has worked verywell: when dedicated men and women share aserious purpose, barriers of language and point ofview tend to be ignored, while the diverse back-grounds result in discussion informative to bothgroups.

Institutional representatives meet at least twicea year. The Executive Committee meets four ormore times a year. Representatives of the head-quarters staff visit each campus at least annually.Each institution has an ad hoc committee, com-posed of persons in English and Education andsometimes other disciplines, which meets regularlyfor the primary purpose of re-examining the insti-tution's own curriculum and initiating improve-ments.

In the fall of 1964, the institutional representa-tives met for two days with the ISCPET advisory

committee: Roger Applebee, Illinois (substitutingfor James R. Squire); Harry S. Broudy, Illinois;Dwight L. Burton, Florida State; Robert Bush,Stanford; Nelson Francis, Brown; Nathaniel Gage,Stanford; Alfred H. Grommon, Stanford; ClarenceHach, Evanston, Illinois, Township High School;William Riley Parker, Indiana; Loren Reid, Mis-souri; and William D. Sheldon, Syracuse. At an-other meeting, Illinois superintendents, principals,supervisors, high school department heads, class-room teachers, and a representative of the StateDepartment of Public Instruction offered theircounsel.

On the basis of these two meetings and after in-tensive study and discussion, the representativesbrought out a preliminary statement called "Qual-ifications of Secondary School Teachers of Eng-lish." About sixteen thousand copies of this state-ment have been distributed, and it has been pub-lished in College English (November 1965). Reprintsare available without charge. The statement serves,among other purposes, as a guide that the twentyinstitutions are using page by page as they examinetheir own curricular offerings. Also, it will be usedas the basis of a "final" statement in 1969.

ISCPET is cooperating with the MLA-NASDTEC-NCTE study intended to prepare pub-lications on standards of preparation in English forelementary and secondary teachers. The director ofISCPET meets periodically with the other group,and Michael Shugrue, associate director of theMLA-NASDTEC-NCTE study, has met once withISCPET representatives. Although the two proj-ects are mutually reinforcing, they differ in severalways. One major difference: the MLA-NASDTEC-NCTE project is based on theory and consensus,while ISCPET stresses action research.

The action research is conducted largely withinthe participating institutions, although bibliog-raphies and other materials are sent out periodicallyfrom the headquarters office. The projects so farunder way are:

Aurora College. A special two-semester internshipprogram involving prospective secondary English teachersas assistants in the teaching of college freshman Englishclasses.

Bradley University. Cooperative study of literature pro-grams being coordinated by North Central College. Astudy to determine the validity of a minimal compositionprogram for students entering a career of English teaching,if the students study composition at the optimum time.A fact-finding survey of the present status of the teachingof English in grades ten, eleven, and twelve of the Illinoisschools.

De Paul University. Development, teaching, and evalua-tion of the results of a special course in advanced Englishcomposition, designed especially for prospective teachersof Secondary English.

Illinois State University. A fact-finding survey of thepresent status of the teaching of English in grades seven,eight, and nine in Illinois schools.

Illinois Wesleyan University. Cooperative study of

Michael F. Shugrue

literature programs being coordinated by North CentralCollege.

Knox College. The preparation of video tape3 andkinescopes, and the use of them in the training of prospec-tive secondary English teachers.

Loyola University. The development, teaching, andevaluation of a secondary English methods course, withthe major emphasis being on the developing of criticalthinking skills on the part of prospective English teachers.Cooperative study of literature programs being coordi-nated by North Central College.

Monmouth College. Cooperative study of literature pro-grams being coordinated by North Central College.

North Central College. An evaluation of the effectivenessof the reorganization of its teacher training curriculum in1957-58. Coordination of the cooperative study of theliterature programs of Bradley University, IllinoisWesleyan University, Loyola University, MonmouthCollege, and North Central College.

Northwestern University. A study of the effectivenessof a filmed training program in composition for teachersin service as an agent of change in the secondary school.

Olivet Nazarene College. A comprehensive study of thepersonal and academic qualifications essential to thesuccessful teaching of the slow learner in high schoolEnglish, and the structuring or modifying of the cur-riculum for the preparation of teachers, embodying ele-ments of training found desirable.

Rockford College. A project involving the use of taperecorders in helping prospective English teachers to de-velop the skills of evaluating written composition.

Roosevelt University. Modification of the program ofprospective secondary English teachers to include histor-ical and structural linguistics, and a study of the effectsof such a modification.

Saint Xavier College. Development of a classroom ob-servation schedule to be used in the evaluation of theEnglish teacher's effectiveness in developing reading skillsappropriate to the secondary school level.

Southern Illinois University. Development of anopinionnaire concerned with particular areas of languageand an analysis of the returns from the opinionnaire'sadministration to prospective English teachers andteachers in service.

University of Illinois. Development, administration,and analysis of an examination based on the ISCPET"Qualifications of Secondary School Teachers of English:A Preliminary Statement."

Western Illinois University. Development, teaching,and evaluation of the results of a course for teachers inservice devoted to the practical application of linguistics,of principles of composition, and of various approachesto the teaching of high school students of varying levelsof ability, particularly the slow learner.

Greenville College and the University of Chicagohave not yet begun special studies. Illinois Wes-leyan and Monmouth are expected to conduct addi-tional special studies. Each study is financedthrough terms of a memorandum of understandingwith the University of Illinois, the contractingagent with the U. S. Office of Education.

At the end of five years, ISCPET hopes to havemade through its special studies 4 number ofmeaningful contributions to existing research inteacher preparation. In addition, it hopes to serveas a model to show how curricular reform in Eng-

4-"

19

lish teacher preparation can be effected syste-matically instead of in the customary patch-by-patch method. Finally, it hopes to prepare, besidesits official final report, a book, addressed to thosewho prepare teachers and to teachers and prospec-tive teachers themselves, entitled tentatively WhatEvery English Teacher Should Know.

Indiana UniversityBefore attempting to design courses of study in

English for all academic ability groups, curriculumplanners must decide what English is. In the earlystages of its project, the IU Curriculum StudyCenter agreed that "English is language, literature,and compositionperiod."' With that definition inmind, the Center staff, directed by Edward B.Jenkinson, seeks to discover how those three com-ponents of English "act, interact, change, and growlike the living things that all three are,"2 and toidentify their structures- -the underlying concepts.Once identified, concepts need to be ordered interms of the maturity and academic ability of thestudents being taught. The basic concepts remainthe same for all students; the assignments andteaching methods vary.

Originally, the I U Center thought in terms of de-veloping three distinct courses of study for aca-demically-talented, average, and slow-learning stu-dents in grades seven through twelve. But thesearch for fundamental concepts and the attemptto order them convinced the Center staff that basicconcepts should be presented to all students throughcontent that challenges each group. Perhaps thefollowing illustrations will best explain what theI U Center is about.

In composition for junior high school students,the IU Center believes that the basic concepts tobe presented are the classical rhetoricians' prin-ciples of inventio and dispositio, which are basic toan understanding of the process of writing. Beforea writer can write anything, he needs first to ex-amine his topicinventio. He needs to ask ques-tions of his subjectfinding the matter, searchingfor terms, and finding the wordsto present hissubject clearly to a definite audience. Then he needsto discard irrelevant matter and arrange pertinentfactsdispositioin an order that works for bothhis subject and his audience. The processes ofinventio and dispositio are the same for all students.The words that teachers use to present the prin-ciples differ, and the standards for evaluation be-come less rigid with lower ability groups, but thebasic concepts remain the same. Inventio is the focalpoint of six structured assignments in grade sevenand dispositio in grade eight; both inventio anddispositio are reinforced in grade nine. The sixstructured theme assignments form the backbone

I William Riley Parker, "The Concept of Structure inEnglish," The Educational Record for July 1962 (Wash-ington, D. C.), p. 212.

'Ibid.

1",


of the composition program: other written assign-ments stressing those rhccorical principles Ltemfrom the literature and language units.

In language and literature, the concepts for allability groups are the same; the matter selected forpresentation and the teaching methods may differ,but not always. For example, the IU Center isdiscovering that slow-learning students can mastersome of the complexities of syntax in an inductiveapproach that emphasizes structures of Englishsentences through building, not analyzing, them.As Jerome Bruner wrote in 1960, "Good teachingthat emphasizes the structure of a subject is prob-ably even more valuab!e for the less able studentthan for the gifted one, for it is the former ratherthan the latter who is most easily thrown off thetrack by poor teaching."3

In the poetry program for grades seven throughnine the elements of poetry are presented to allstudents. Activities are arranged according to dif-ficulty, from the simple and concrete to the moreabstract, so that the same sequence may be pre-sented, with appropriate modifications, to non-academic, average, and academically-talentedstudents. The program is cumulative in that em-phasis, which is first on sound and beat, then movesto include story, idea, picture, and metaphor.

The IU Center, then, is concerned with the dis-covery of fundamental concepts in language, litera-ture, and composition (oral and written), and withthe ordering of those concepts in inductive teachingprograms which may be adapted for students ofvarying abilities. The courses of study being pre-pared are not outlines, but adequate descriptionsof content and methods.

A brief summary of the contents of each of thenine volumes to be completed and their probablepublication dates follow:

1. Essays on Teaching Literary Forms, Language andCompositionFall of 1966. This volume, written by pro-fessors at Indiana University, will contain essays on teach-ing the novel, short stories, essays, drama, biography andautobiography, poetry, composition (oral and written),and language.

2. Literature for Junior High School StudentsWinterof 1966-67. The literature program will include explica-tions of one novel for each grade level and for each abilitygroup, plus units on mythology, the Bible as literature,poetry, short stories, essays, biography and autobiog-raphy, and drama.

3. Language for Junior High School StudentsWinterof 1966-67. Basic concepts for all students are presentedin units on connotative and denotative meanings of words,use of dictionaries, how words are formed, how wordschange meaning in time and context, introduction tophonology and morphology through prefixes and suffixes,roots and combining forms, a brief history of the Englishlanguage through borrowed words, usage, and a spellingprogram that attempts to establish phonemic-graphemicrelationships. Two separate pedagogical grammars, onefor talented and average students and one for slow-learning students, will be included.

4. Composition for Junior High School StudentsWin-ter of 1966-67. Like the volumes on literature and lan-

guage, this volume will contain cross references to theother two components of English. The composition pro-gram emphasizes the principles of inventio and dispositioin six structured theme assignments for each grade level,and also suggests assignments stemming from the studyof literature and language.

5. Literature for Senior High School StudentsWinterof 1967-68. Like its companion for the junior high school,this volume will contain explications of novels for eachof three ability groups within each grade, plus units onpoetry, short stories, essays, biography and autobiog-raphy, drama, comedy, tragedy, and satire.

6. Language for Senior High School StudentsWinterof 1967-68. The formal study of syntax ends in juniorhigh school for academically-talented and average stu-dents. The pedagogical grammar for slow-learning stu-dents will be printed in the volume for junior high. Thisvolume for grades ten through twelve will contain unitson cultural levels and functional varieties of usage,semantics, lexicography, and dialects.

7. Composition for Senior High School StudentsWin-ter of 1967-68. Continuing with six structured themeassignments for each grade, this volume will emphasizeelocutio, persuasive and argumentative writing, seman-tics, usage, and logic.

8. SourcesSummer of 1968. This volume will containannotated bibliographies of textbooks, references, audio-visual materials, and desiderata for future publications.

9. Speech in the Senior High SchoolSpring of 1966.Elective courses in oral composition include a basiccourse emphasizing informative and persuasive speeches,discussion, and parliamentary procedure; an advancedcourse concentrating on discussion and debate and argu-mentative and persuasive speeches; and courses intheatre arts and radio and television broadcasting.

In addition to the nine volumes, the Center staffalso produces a newsletter to inform teachers inIndiana of its progress. The Newsletter containssample units and essays.

University of MichiganThe program at the University of Michigan, under

the direction of Daniel Fader, concerns itself pri-marily with the attitude toward reading and writ-ing of the student who is usually classified as "gen-eral" in high school, and who, in another context, issometimes identified as disadvantaged. Such a stu-dent's literacy is often marginal and he is cus-tomarily credited by his teachers with having a"practical" mind: that is, he needs to perceive andbe able to judge the immediate relationship betweencause and effect before he can be successfully moti-vated. His questions about literature are often putin terms of "What does it mean to me?" which isonly a more specific version of his questioning an-swer "Why should I?" to the demands of readingand writing. The purpose of the program called"English In Every Classroom" is to help the menand women who teach such students to supply themwith answers that will satisfy their questions andtheir needs.

This program is designed to provide the general

The Process of Education (Cambridge: Harvard Uni-versity Press, 1960), p. 9.

)i

Michael F. Shugrue

student with motivation for reading and writingeven as it provides him with appropriate materialsupon which to practice and with which to reinforcehis literacy. Its potential significance to educationlies in its systematic expansion of what good Eng-lish teachers have done or tried to do or wanted todo in schools and classrooms everywhere: convincetheir colleagues in all subjects that English mustbe taught by each teacher in every classroom, andprovide materials for teaching literacy which invitethe general student to learn. All aspects of the pro-gram proceed upon the assumption that the chiefproblem in teaching literacy is not the problem ofintellect but the problem of motivation. The pro-gram further assumes that in the teaching of liter-acy, as in the teaching of all other skills, the stu-dent's desire to learn makes learning probable.That this program may be the first school-wide ap-proach to the language problems of the general stu-dent says something for the acute nature of theneed in that area. Equally revealing is a discoverymade by the psychologists who are responsible fortesting the program: within the varied and subtlespectrum of devices invested and validated for thetesting of literacy, almost no work at all has beendone in the vast area of testing attitudes towardreading and writing.

Members of the Departments of English andPsychology and of the School of Education at theUniversity of Michigan have been engaged for thepast two years in shaping and testing a program forthe teaching of English in the W. J. Maxey BoysTraining School at Whitmore Lake, Michigan. TheEnglish program at the Maxey School, which isnow also being used in the Garnet-Patterson JuniorHigh School in Washington, D. C., is the source ofmethods for teaching English described here.

"English In Every Classroom" describes a pro-gram which is based on the dual concepts of SATU-RATION and DIFFUSION. The first of these key con-cepts, SATURATION, considers the influence of thechild's total school environment upon any attemptto give him functional literacy. It proposes to sosurround the student with newspapers, magazines,and paperbound books that he comes to perceivethem as pleasurable means to necessary ends. Theadvantages inherent in selecting such materials forclassroom use are great. First, and most important,all newspapers, most magazines, and the greatmajority of paperbound books are written in theknowledge that commercial disaster is the rewardfor creating paragraphs that people should read.With the choice a clear one between market successand business failure, publishers, editors, and writershave made their own survival dependent upon dis-covering what people will read. This program ad-vances the radical notion that students are peopleand should be treated accordingly when being in-duced to learn how to read. Therefore, newspapers,magazines, and paperbound books become obviouschoices as texts for the classroom.

A second and perhaps important advantage in the

21

selection of such materials to saturate the student'sschool environment is their relationship to theworld outside the school building. No one believesthat we are training children from any social levelto be performers in school; every one believes thatstudents come to the schools to learn skills theywill need when they leave school, no matter whatthe level at which they leave. And yet, instead ofimporting materials from that world for the teach-ing of the literacy that world requires, we ignoresuch materials as unworthy of the better world weteachers are dedicated to creating. This programyields to none in its desire to help make a betterworld. It is equally strong, however, in its desire toeducate students to deal with the world as it is. Noliterature better represents that world than thevarious periodicals and softbound books whichsupply the basic materials for the saturation pro-gram.

The third advantage of these materials is closelyrelated to the second. Not only do newspapers,magazines, and paperbound books enable the stu-dent to deal with the world as it is, they also invitehim to do so. All educators are only too familiarwith the school-text syndrome, that disease whosesymptoms are uneducated students and unread ma-terialsunread not because of their good qualitybut because of their bad format. School textsoften go unread just because they are schooltexts and apparently have very little to do withthe non-school world. One certain way to breakthe syndrome is to remove the proximate causesin this case traditional school textsand substitutenewspapers, magazines, and paperbound books intheir place.

SATURATION applies in principle not only to theselection and distribution of periodicals and soft-bound texts throughout the curriculum, but to theexplosion of writing in the student's school environ-ment. This explosion is based upon the practice ofDIFFUSION, the second of the two key concepts inthe design of "English In Every Classroom" andthe concept from which the program primarilytakes its name. Whereas saturation refers to thematerials used in every classroom to induce thechild to enter the doorway of functional literacy,diffusion refers to the responsibility of everyteacher in every classroom to make the house ofliteracy attractive. In discharging this responsibil-ity, every teacher becomes an intermediary be-tween the student and functional literacy. Inorder that the student may come to view writingas a means to all ends, all ends which he pursues ina scholastic context must insist upon writing as themeans through which they can be approached. Inshort, every teacher becomes a teacher of Englishand English is taught in every classroom.

Western Michigan UniversityThe Modern Language Association, the National

Council of Teachers of English, and the NationalAssociation of State Directors of Teacher Educa-


tion and Certification (NASTDEC) are cooperatingin a nineteen-month program to write guidelinesfor teacher certification in English. Supported by acontract of $172,214 from the USOE, the project isunder the direction of William P. Viall, ExecutiveSecretary of NASDTEC and Coordinator of Grad-uate Programs in the School of Education atWestern Michigan University, and has its head-quarters on the Western Michigan campus atKalamazoo. Eldonna L. Evertts, Assistant Execu-tive Secretary of NCTE, and Michael F. Shugrue,Research Associate in English for the MLA, areserving as Associate Directors. An Advisory Board,including such prominent educators as CharlotteBrooks, Albert Grommon, Albert Marckwardt, andRobert W. Rogers, the Executive Secretaries ofMLA and NCTE, NASDTEC officials, and a rep-resentative of the National Council of Chief StateSchool Officers, met in September in Denver,Colorado, to establish procedures for the study andto draft the first outlines of the guidelines. TheETPS (English Teacher Preparation Study) willcall together scholars, teachers, supervisors, andcertification officials to draft and refine guidelineswhich should serve two principal functions: to aidcertification and accreditation officials in establish-ing certification standards within the states and infacilitating reciprocity for teachers, and to assistcolleges and universities in developing and improv-ing their own teacher preparation programs inEnglish.

The first of four regional conferences, involvingseventy persons, was held in Boston following theNovember convention of the NCTE. At the secondregional conference in Salt Lake City in January,ninety persons discussed and reworked the guide-lines document. A meeting of the Advisory Boardin New Orleans late in January discussed issueswhich had been raised in earlier conferences andworked to ready the guidelines for a national mail-ing in April to hundreds of department chairmenin English and in Education, to state officials, andto NCTE affiliates. The third regional conference,to be held in Iowa City in May in connection withthe Midwest MLA meeting, and the fourth, to beheld in Charlotte, North Carolina, at the meetingof the South Atlantic MLA, will lead to a nationalconference of 175 persons in Chicago in January1967. Members of the staff have already held reportsessions and half-day working sessions at meetingsof ISCPET, the South Central MLA, NCTE, andMLA. Progress reports will be presented in thespring to meetings of AACTE, ASCD, CCCC, Con-ference on English Education, ACET, IRA, andNASDTEC. In addition, state-level meetings onthe model of that held in Utah in January will takeplace around the country throughout the spring andfall.

The current guidelines document, which will besubmitted to a wide sampling of the profession forreview and comment, preserves the traditional

division of English into language, literature, andcomposition, but it also attempts to make recom-mendations about fifth-year programs, the role of ageneral or liberal arts education in the preparationof elementary school teachers and secondaryteachers of English, and the professional prepara-tion of the teacher.

University of MinnesotaThe University of Minnesota English Project is

devoted to the development and preliminary eval-uation of a series of teaching materials on the natureand uses of the English language. The materials arebeing produced in the form of resource units foruse in grades seven through twelve. The project,directed by Stanley B. Kegler, is now midway inthe fourth year of its five-year program. Currently,the center is completing materials, gathering reac-tions from teachers and students using the mate-rials, making other estimates of the usefulness of thematerials, conducting teacher training programs,developing tests, and informing interested teachersand administrators.

Completion of materials. Thirty-one teachingunits, spread across grades seven through twelve,are being prepared by the center. Twenty-four havebeen printed or are ready to be printed, five are be-ing edited and revised, and one is yet to be written.The complete units, with only three exceptions,were written during the first two years of the proj-ect and revised during the summer of 1965. Thethree exceptions were written during the summer of1965. The five units written in 1965 (which are nowbeing edited and revised) are devoted to introducinggenerative grammar to junior high school students.The one unit yet to be written, for the eleventhgrade, deals with English as used in countries otherthan the United States. A list of the units is ap-pended to this report. In addition to the basicunits and materials, packets of student readingsare being printed. In the case of junor high schoolunits, which tend to be shorter than senior highunits, the readings for all units at a given gradelevel are being bound together in a single booklet.Readings for senior high will appear as booklets foreach unit.

Reactions of teachers and students. A combinationquestionnaire and free response evaluation formbeing used by teachers in the program and a similarform being prepared for use by students will gatherthe subjective reactions of teachers and studentsfrom the thirty-three junior and senior high schoolsin which the materials are being used.

Other estimates of the materials. Administrators ofthe school systems in which the project materialsare being used agreed to supply pertinent test dataabout students, so that some additional estimatescan be made about the usefulness of the materials.The most thorough evaluation will be made withstudents in Hopkins, Minnesota, schools (a Min-neapolis suburb), where the materials are being

Michael F.

used in all grades, seven through twelve. At eachgrade level at least one section of average-abilitystudents is using the project materials and at leastone comparable section is continuing with the estab-lished course of study. The extensive informationabout student performance already gathered by theHopkins schools will be compared with additionalinformation gathered during the spring and fall of1966. Although the Hopkins study does not consti-tute a controlled experimental evaluation, carefulfactoring out of variables should allow for sometentative statements about the effectiveness of thematerials.

Teacher training programs. During the 1965-66academic year the teachers in the Hopkins schoolsare meeting two hours per week with members ofthe English Project staff to provide a forum fordiscussing the entire sequence of materials, furnishbackground information for teaching the units, ex-amine alternatives and modifications of the sug-gested activities, and gather reactions of studentsand teachers to the materials. Interested under-graduate and graduate students from the Uni-versity of Minnesota have been invited to attend aseries of evening meetings conducted by the center.On a strictly voluntary 'basis and with no coursecredits attached, these meetings were attended byabout twenty-five persons each week for fifteenweeks last year and by a somewhat larger numberso far this year. Personnel from the center are alsoparticipating in a series of informal discussionsarranged by two teachers in the Minneapolis publicschools who are presei. tly using the materials.These teachers have invited colleagues who wish tolearn more of the project to join in the discussions.

Development of tests. Two sorts of testing are ofconcern to the members of the center staff. First,several unit tests to accompany the materials havebeen completed and are printed with the units.Others are being prepared, in time, it is hoped, to beof help to teachers using the materials. Second, atest meant to measure knowledge of language con-cepts is being prepared. Different questions anddifferent formats have been tried informally withhigh school, undergraduate, and graduate students.Revisions are being made now, and the test itemswill be used with as many high school students aspossible, certainly with students in the Hopkinsschools and in University High School in Minne-apolis.

Information programs. Personnel from the centerwelcome requests to meet with groups of teachersand administrators. During the past calendar yearmeetings have been held with six groups of schooladministrators and over twenty groups of teachers.

Summary. Work will continue this year on allaspects of the program. Priority is given to thecompletion and evaluation of the materials and tothe development of the test of language concepts.A more complete description of the University ofMinnesota English Project is in preparation. This

Shugrue 23

description will treat in detail the historical andcontemporary procedures for the materials beingdeveloped and the assumptions about curriculumdesign which guide the work of the center.

Unit Titles701 Introduction to the Study of Language702 Changes in the Meanings of Words: I703 The People Who Study Language704 Introduction to Transformational Grammar705 Syntactic Relationships

801 Our System of Spelling802 Language Varies with Approach803 Structures of Time, Mode, Manner, and Causality804 Structures of Specification, Place, and Number

901 Language Varies with Backgrounds and Interests902 The Dictionary: Describer or Prescriber?903 Approaches to Grammar904 Introduction to Paragraph Revision: Structures

of Emphasis in the Paragraph905 A Historical Study of the English Lexicon

1001 The Nature of Meaning in Language1002 The Modes and Functions of Discourse1003 The Language of Exposition1004 Changes in the Meanings of Words: II1005 Grammatical Formations1006 Learning Our Language1007 Dialects and Social Stereotyping1101-A Language Varies by Place: American English1101-B Languages Varies by Place: English in Other

Countries1102 The Language of Persuasion1103 The Nature and Evaluation of Argument1104 An Outline of Grammatical Elements1201 A Historical Study of English Phonology, Mor-

phology, and Syntax1202 The Language of Evocation1203 The Social and Psychological Implications of

Language1204 The Evaluation of Persuasive Discourse1205 Linguistic Description

University of NebraskaThe Nebraska Curriculum Development Center

originally proposed to do work in seven areas: (1)composition and the usable portions of classicalrhetoric; (2) composition and the possibility of anew rhetoric: the rhetorical possibilities of "dis-course analysis" and recent British studies of thephilosophical "grammar and logic" of language;(3) composition and its relation to structural andtransformational grammar; (4) composition andclose reading: the teaching of literature and its useas a rhetorical or structural model; (5) the con-struction of criteria and tests for the measurementof excellence in composition; (6) the analysis oflevels of student maturity at which basic composi-tion "habits" or "patterns of decision" are formed;(7) the construction of criteria and tests for the cor-rection of themes in the areas of syntax, logic, andpersuasive strategy. The program:

First: Students learn to understand linguistic,


rhetorical, or literary forms by examining samplesof those forms selected specifically to exhibit a pat-tern simply and baldly. They encounter an in-creasingly complex sequence of these forms.4

Second: All, or practically all, Nebraska Centerelementary English study begins with a study ofchildren's literature of a high order. Nebraskachildren study language in their literature units andcome to understand it by analyzing carefully-selccted samples of it or by playing "games" whichprovide them with clues as to how language com-municates through system. The composition pro-gram asks students to write in a series of literarymodes and to experiment with manipulating lin-guistic forms which they have studied. It does notmake heavy demands on their capacity to intel-lectualize in discursive prose forms.

Third: The Nebraska Center's junior high unitsbegin with a linguistic or literary core and move onto composition. Well over half the program is givenover to the study of literary myths, heroes, genres.The Nebraska junior high school program includesa good many units which do not begin with a liter-ary center and then move into language andcomposition. Rather, some units, from the begin-ning, ask that students investigate language.

Fourth: When Nebraska-program students com-plete their junior high years, they finish their formalstudy of linguistics "in isolation." From then on,they are expected to draw upon this knowledge in

Literature and Composition Units:

Grade 7

God-and-man narratives: allegoryexemplum, symbol: Typical Readings: Tracks A, B, C

1. The Making of StoriesRhetoric of literature unit2. The Meaning of StoriesRhetoric of literature unit3. The Myth: Classical4. Ancient Hebrew Narrative5. The Myth: Indian6. Stories of the American West

Grade 8

The Hero: character, exemplum, point of view:1. The Making of HeroesRhetoric of literature unit

2. The Journey Novel Hero: The Picaro

3. The Historical Novel Hero

4. The Epic Hero5. The Western American Hero

Grade 9

Genre: stylistic level, form, plot:1. Attitude, Tone, and Perspective: The GenresRhet-

oric of literature unit2. Satire: Formal and Menippean

their analysis of literature and in the analysis of thesyntax and style of their own writing; but they nolonger do work in linguistic description per se.Much of their work may be described as work inlinguistic rhetoric; some as work in classical rhet-oric or modern British philosophy.

Details of the Structure:

Nebraska center units include generally ateacher packet and a student packet (secondaryunits). Units contain reading materials, backgroundscholarship, study questions, etc. All units arecomposition units, either language and compositionor literature and composition.Elementary School:

Literature: studies in myths, comedies, romances,fables, satires, biographies, etc.

Language: structural studies of the nature of language,form classes, morphology, syntax, dialects, historyof language, etc.

Composition: a) writing in a literary-rhetorical modewhich the children have exar. ined; b) experimentswith manipulating linguistic structures.

The elementary program is too complex to bepresented in a chart.

4 The writings of Jean Piaget and Jerome Bruner areuseful background here.

3. Greco-Roman myths and related poems.4. Hebrew narratives and related western poetry.5. Iroquois, Cherokee, Tachi myths.6. Schaeffer, Shane.

1. Crane, The Red Gadge of Courage; Hemingway, TheOld Man and the Sea; The Diary of Anne Frank.

2. Lazarillo de Tormes; Cervantes, Don Quixote; White,The Once and Future King.

3. Forbes, Johnny Tremain; Captain from Connecticut;To lstoy, War and Peace; Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities.

4. Beowulf; The Song of Roland.5. Parkman, The Oregon Trail; Garland, Son of the Middle

Border.

2. Orwell, Animal Farm; Wibberly, The Mouse thatRoared.


3. Idea of a Play

4. Comedy

5. The Epic

Grade 10

Theme: literary perspectives and tragedy:

1. Man and Nature

2. Man and Moral Law: Sin and Loneliness

3. Man and Society: The Leader and the Group

4. Tragedy

Grade 11

Theme and Genre: American themes and "genres":1. Man and Nature: Individualism and Nature: Auto-

biography2. Man and Moral Law: Sin and Loneliness: Allegory

3. Man and Society: American Materialism: Satire

Grade 12Genre and Theme: English themes and genres:1. Shakespearean Tragedy-Man and Moral law2. Christian Epic-Man and Moral law3. Augustan and Restoration Satire: Man and Society4. The 19th-Century Ode, Sonnet, Romance-Man and

Nature5. The Class Novel-Man and Society

Language and Composition Units:

Meaning

7. The Dictionary8. Words and Their Meanings9. The Uses of Language

10. The Rhetoric of the WholeComposition and Facts

11. The Rhetoric of the WholeComposition and Inference*

12. Composition units to be completed*

* Starred units are not complete.

3. Part of Aristophanes' Frogs; Beaumont and Fletcher,Knight of the Burning Pestle; Wilder, Our Town.

4. Plautus, The Rope; Shakespeare, Twelfth Night; Shaw,Arms and the Man.

5. Homer, The Odyssey.

1. Crane, "The Open Boat," "The Piper at the Gatesof Dawn."

2. Steinbeck, The Pearl: Coleridge, The Rime of theAncient Mariner; Hardy, Return of the Native.

3. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar; Kennedy, Profiles inCourage.

4. Sophocles, Oedipus; Marlowe, Dr. Faustus; Synge,Riders to the Sea.

1. Thoreau, Walden; Emerson, Essays; Whitman, Leavesof Grass; Dickinson, Poems.

2. Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter; Melville, Billy Budd;Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; Faulkner,The Unvanquished.

3. Lewis, Babbitt; Eliot, Early Poems; Fitzgerald, TheGreat Gatsby.

1. Hamlet.2. Paradise Lost, Faerie Queene.3. Dryden, Pope, Swift, Gulliver's Travels.4. Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, Blake.

5. Austen, Dickens, Hardy.

Grammar Sound

Form ClassesSyntaxSyntax and Style: RevisionSyntax and Style: The Sentence and theParagraphSyntax and Style in the Paragraph*

New York UniversityThe following report states the general purposes

and aims of the New York University LinguisticDemonstration Center and summarizes the progressof the center to date under the direction of Neil M.Postman. In recent years, no aspect of languagestudy has caused more excitement or puzzlementthan linguistics. Teachers of English have watchedwith fascination the development of the scienceof language, a science that is inductive, objective,

*

Spelling*Phonology and Spelling*Intonation and Punctuation*Intonation and Prosody*

*

*

and systematic, whose tentative conclusions arestated in the language of description, not prescrip-tion. At the same time, teachers of English havebeen uncertain about the classroom implicationsand uses of linguistics. Before they abandon thecontent and methodology of traditional grammar,they want answers to such questions as these: Whatare the major purposes of teaching linguistics?Should there be emphasis on the methodology orresults of linguistic science? In what sequence

.-i7.411.*731.1%,'WZZ:14744.10


should the concepts of linguistic science be taught?Which concepts are most likely to lead to improvedlanguage behavior? What kinds of materials areavailable? What teaching methods are most har-monious with the content of the subject?

The main purpose of the linguistic demonstra-tion center is, through the media of television, toinform teachers of English, department chairmen,school administrators, and even members of boardsof education of the sequences, materials, and, par-ticularly, the methods that have been used and arebeing used in established linguistic programs.Methodology is stressed because linguistics has lentitself particularly well to inductive methods ofteaching; that is, methods which present the studyof language as a process of discovery, methods whichstem from the assumption that language has pat-terns that are within students' powers to observeand analyze, and methods wherein the burden ofintellectual activity is placed not on the teacher ortextbook but on the student.

The main activity of the linguistic demonstrationcenter has been the preparation of eleven televisionprograms for presentation on New York's educa-tional television station, WNDT (Channel 13). Ingeneral, each program has been a demonstrationlesson in which teachers and students from co-operating schools simulate on television the activ-ities of the classroom. We have completed eightprograms and have three more in preparation. Theprograms are spontaneous, "live" classroom lessons,each focusing on some linguistic principle ormethodology. In one program, for example, a classexplores the question "Who determines what is'right' in language?" Another program focuses onusage studies and sentence analysis. Another showshow teachers provide for individual differencesamong students. Still another demonstrates meth-ods of inductive teaching in the area of grammar.Each program features commentaries by the staffor its consultants. Some of the telecasts includedbrief interviews with administrators (on in-servicelinguistic programs), department chairmen (onproblems of initiating a linguistics program), teach-ers (on methodology and sequence), and students(on the effects of instruction in linguistics). Kine-scopes of these programs made by WNDT willallow the work of the center to be extended farbeyond the range of greater metropolitan NewYork.

Another service of the linguistic demonstrationcenter has been to act as a source for consultationvisits to various schools. Lectures by the staff or itsconsultants have been a regular feature of the visits.The staff of the center has also been available in anadvisory capacity to assist administrators in thedevelopment of new linguistics programs. A finalaspect of the center's activities has been to sponsorat least two meetings each year at which teachersof English, department chairmen, and school ad-ministrators listen to and exchange ideas with ex-perts from the linguistics disciplines.

Northern Illinois UniversityThe Northern Illinois University Curriculum

Center, which began its work in June 1964, is pre-paring a curriculum in linguistics and composition.English teachers have, in recent years, been read-ing a good deal about structural linguistics andtransformational grammar. Some linguists haveclaimed that these grammars will lead to a revolu-tion in the teaching of composition. Others say thateven though these grammars are inductive, objec-tive, and recursive, and therefore more honest andinteresting than the conventional classroom gram-mar, the study of grammar has demonstrablylittle or nothing to do with the teaching of com-position. But there is little evidence to supporteither of these views.

We believe that the total grammatical structureof English is far more complex than any classroomgrammar has yet presented it as being. Our gram-mars, no matter what approach they take, presentthe facts of our language only on a very high levelof abstraction. They discuss "nouns," "adjectives,""adverbs," "verbs," "conjunctions," and the like,but they do not present co-occurrent sets of sub-classes of nouns and verbs, nouns and adjectives,verbs and adverbs, etc. In simpler terms, our avail-able classroom grammars now present to the stu-dent, only in the most rudimentary way, informa-tion about "what goes with what." When thestudent begins to move from the level of abstractgrammaticalness, as represented by writing simplesentences, to levels of greater particularity, asrepresented by writing complex sentences or sen-tences containing many modifiers, he begins tohave his most serious trouble. Accordingly, thiscurriculum center is attempting to answer twoquestions: Do any of the recent grammars ofEnglish have a greater relevance to the teaching ofcomposition than does the traditional classroomgrammar? Is the study of grammar in any wayrelevant to the teaching of composition in thetwelfth grade?

To help answer these questions the NorthernIllinois University Curriculum Center has involvedfifteen experienced twelfth-grade teachers of En-glish. These teachers represent schools in the north-ern one-third of the state from Lake Michigan tothe Mississippi River. They come from largeChicago and suburban public high schools, fromsmall-town high schools, and from Catholic andProtestant schools of various sizes. These teachersmaster the grammars, write materials, and teachthese materials in pilot classes. While they repre-sent a diversity of school situations, they share acommon curiosity, capacity for hard work, anddesire to experiment. The Center is staffed by theDirector (Linguistics), and an Associate Director(English), both full-time in the summer and one-quarter time during the academic year. A typistassists the two-man staff when her services areneeded, and two outside consultants are paid ona per-visit basis.

Michael F. Shugrue 27The center's plan of operation includes two eight-

week summer seminars. Here the participatingteachers are trained to teach the new curriculumand to write the test materials which will be placedin the hands of their students. The seminars aresupplemented by eight Saturday meetings duringthe two academic years that the materials are ontrial. During these meetings the Directors andparticipating teachers explore the ways in whichthe materials are valuable as linguistic materialsand how they may be applied to the teaching ofcomposition. Further, they criticize the materialsand examine the writing which has resulted fromtheir use. In addition to these Saturday meetings,the project directors visit the classrooms of theparticipating teachers.

In the spring of 1965, before the first summerseminar was held, a plan was drawn up for a tenta-tive curriculum for this seminar and for the aca-demic year 1965-66. The project director did notwish to prescribe a curriculum for the teachers, sinceprescription is not consistent with productive ex-perimentation. Nevertheless, a tentative frameworkwas constructed within which experimental ma-terials could be developed and taught.

The questions asked cannot be answered by de-voting attention wholly to any one grammar or torhetoric. The assumption, proven reasonablyvalid in teaching, is that a pluralistic approach togrammar holds the best possibility for a fruitfulcurriculum. Further, the kind of pluralism pro-posed is not wholly conventional, if any combina-tion of grammars can be called conventional. Itwas decided to build the curriculum around severalgrammars, an approach which is not usuallyassociated with composition teaching. The firstsummer seminar began with readings from Bloom-field and Sapir. Discussion of these readings laid ahistorical groundwork for a structural grammar andpointed up the necessity for an inductive-descrip-tive, rather than a deductive-prescriptive approach.This unit was followed by a criticism of the hand-books used by the teachers in their own class-rooms. Criteria for this criticism were formulatedand papers were written which illuminated thedifferences among the various kinds of definitionused in conventional classroom texts (semantic,functional, and emotional), between induction anddeduction, between grammar and usage.

The large part of this summer seminar was spentstudying a structural phonology and morphology.From this study emerged one hundred and seventy-five pages of written material, which is currentlybeing tried in the classroom and will shortly beundergoing revision. Units in the history of thelanguage, morphology and parts of speech, andsegmental and suprasegmental phonology havealready been produced. The latter materials aremost interesting in their application to composi-tion.

We are coming to believe that oral discourse andwritten composition may have more points in

common than is usually assumed. Accordingly,we are trying to develop, among other things, an"aural-written" approach to the teaching of com-position. In this approach we use some of the sametechniques used in training the TEFL: analysis ofrecognition and production problems and the rela-tionship between recognition and production, theconstruction of materials emphasizing such thingsas the production of unreleased stops in final con-sonant clusters, the relationships between junctureand punctuation, and analyses of the juncture ofsentence-interrupters.

Audio-visual materials have also been developed.Most interesting are slide sets illustrating the pro-duction of pllanemes, a combination slide set andcontinuous tape set illustrating stress, pitch, andjuncture, and a cardboard "computer" which iden-tifies, at one and the same time, a phoneme, itsmost frequent spellings, and an example of its oc-currence. These materials have been distributedamong the participating teachers and are now inuse in the classroom. During the summer of 1966the participating teachers and the project staffwill complete the revision and editing of materialscurrently under trial. The second summer seminarwill be devoted to syntax. We will take a look atthe possibilities in stratification grammar andlinguistic transformations. The bulk of the mater-ials for the following school year will probably con-centrate on a transformational syntax. With trialand revision of these latter materials, the centerwill conclude its work in August 1967. We hopethat we will have produced a tested pluralisticcurriculum supported by considerable evaluativedata, which will enable us to begin answering thetwo questions we have posed.

Northwestern UniversityThe Northwestern Curriculum Study Center,

directed by Wallace W. Douglas, is preparing aseries of lessons in the art of writing for gradesseven to twelve. The lessons have sequence, incre-ment, and development; but these qualities arederived rather from the nature of the subject mat-ter than from the observable and assumed char-acteristics of children in their various develop-mental stages. Hence, though the lessons are pre-sented as ordered and graded, the arrangement isby no means canonical. What is generally appropri-ate for most students in grades seven to eight mayin certain situations be especially useful for, say,verbally skillful and socially advanced children infifth grade, or, equally, for disadvantaged childrenin the ninth or tenth grades. Therefore the lessonsare prepared to give teachers opportunities toexercise judgment and choice, according to theconditions they face.

The Northwestern lessons are based on four as-sumptions:1) Writing is a process, and lessons designed to teachwriting must be developed from what is known or dis-

coverable about that process.


2) Beginning writers need much practice in all theactivities that go into the production of written pieces;the preparation of papers is only one of these activities.

3) The writing class is not the place, nor papers themeans, normalize the dialectal forms in students'speech.

4) Style and such matters depend on the ability to seeand gather material: rem tene, verbs sequentur.

The Northwestern Lessons are lessons in the artof writing. "Art" is used here in the practical, notthe honorific, sense. The intention is to emphasizethe fact that writing is a process. "Now all Art,"Aristotle says, "has to do with production, andcontrivance, and seeing how any of those thingsmay be produced which may either be or not be, andthe origination of which rests with the maker andnot with the thing made." But even withoutAristotle, common sense would tell us that "writ-ing" refers in the first place to an activity and onlysecondarily to a congeries of qualities that can befound, or at least looked for, in pieces of writing.It should not be forgotten that such terms as in-vention, disposition, and word-choice were orig-inally applied to parts of the process of construct-ing speeches; only later was their significancetransferred to the abstract qualities of the productsof that process. Young people who are being askedto write need, first of all, to be taught how to dowhat writers do as they develop their writingsfrom an original idea for a piece to the completedand complete whole. Only later do they needandcan they profit frominstruction in the analysis ofthe qualities of written pieces. At present studentsas beginning writers get much instruction inanalysis of completed works, little in how worksare brought to completion. The Northwestern Les-sons attempt to correct the balance.

The starting point of the sequence is Some Les-sons in the Basic Processes of Composition: a groupof eighteen lessons. Part i (ten lessons) is concen-trated on problems of Classification and Indi-vidualization, Part II (eight lessons), on ReportingSensory Impressions. The lessons also introduce theconcepts of audience and of writer's purpose;there is some work on style in the form of exercisesin sentence development. Part i seems most appro-priate for grade seven, Part II for grade eight. Butthe audience is not so much "children in gradesseven and eight" as it is "children who are beginningto learn about writing as such or as a means ofcommunication." Hence these materials should beusable, the necessary changes being made, in othergrade levels, by teachers who intend to teach writ-ing. The lessons were tested informally in 1964-65; as a result they were completely revised andconsiderably expanded during the summer of1965. They are now being re-tested under controlledconditions. An interesting and potentially verysignificant by-product of the Basic Lessons is ATeacher's Experience with Composition. This is a setof lessons in composition adapting the principlesand techniques of the Basic Lessons to the condi-

tions of teaching a fourth-grade class in a Chicagoinner-city school. These materials will be testedduring the second semester at three schools inDistrict 19, which is in the North Lawndale section.

The second stage in the Northwestern Lessonsin Composition is Lessons in Simple Forms ofPublic Discourse. The significance of the title isthis: the writing in the Basic Lessons is in the formof exercises; the purpose is to explore the resourcesof words and sentences, communication is secon-dary, and the problems of form in conventionalwriting units are largely untouched. In this seconddivision of the Northwestern Lessons, on the otherhand, children are introduced to some simplejournalistic forms and to the relationships that awriter may have to his material and, through hismaterial, to his central idea. Journalistic forms areused because only in newspapers and the commen-tary sections of some sorts of magazines can onefind real (that is, existing in published form) piecesof writing that correspond to the word limitationsof most assignments in composition classes. Thewriter's relationships to his material are analyzedas a report, analysis, and evaluation, the terms ex-pressing different degrees of objectivity. The em-phasis throughout is on the gathering and selectingof material. The purpose is to give students prac-tice in making the decisions that lead to unifiedtone. The lessons, designed for the ninth grade,are now being tested at Taft High School in Chi-cago. Because analysis of finished pieces is a neces-sary (though perhaps not so essential as has beenthought) part of the process of learning to write,the Northwestern Center has prepared lessons onthe author's persona, so-called, and on prose style.The persona lessons are in two parts, for grades tenand twelve. The style lessons are prepared forgrades eleven and twelve.

The Center has also prepared the following gen-eral papers on the theory of teaching composition:Composition in Seventh and Eighth Grade (byJ. H. Hagstrum), On Teaching Composition (byW. W. Douglas), On the Concept of Persona (byW. W. Douglas), On Types of Prose: An Introduc-tion to the Northwestern Curriculum (by CarlBarth, Stephen Judy, and Rita Hansen), On theUse of Models in Teaching Composition (by A. S.Dunning). The following units are in preparationor scheduled: for grade 8, On Paragraphing andthe One-paragraph Piece; for grade ten, On Assign-ments and the Short-piece; for grades ten andeleven, Lessons in Academic Writing; for gradeseleven and twelve, Lessons in the Formal Essay,Lessons on Usage; for grade twelve, Lesson onLogic; a unit on Speech (as a transition to Aca-demic Writing).

Ohio State UniversityProject 5-0618

Ohio State University has received an Office ofEducation grant to develop composition units basedon generative grammar and psycholingnistic theory


for grades seven to nine. Under the direction ofFrank J. Zidonis and Donald R. Bateman, theCenter, which began its work on 1 September 1965and will continue until 30 September 1969, has thefollowing objectives:

1. To identify in current generative grammar andpsycholinguistic theory a set of operations that character-ize the composing process.

2. To identify specific grammatical mis-operations andto construct a comprehensive description of expectedcompositional behavior for pupils in Grades 4-12.

3. To develop, field test, and evaluate compositionpackages for pupils in grades seven to nine based onlinguistics and psycholinguistic theory setting forth aprogram to facilitate the production of well-formed sen-tences and to eliminate operations that produce mal-formed sentences.

4. To develop and evaluate a set of teacher guides forgrades seven to nine embracing both the methodologyand substantive materials necessary and appropriate foreach grade level.

Procedures:To Accomplish Objective 1: During the introduc-

tory stage of the project, specialists from linguisticsand psycholinguistics will meet with the CenterStaff in a series of extended sessions in order to de-velop a compendium of related psycholinguistic andlinguistic operations. The linguist is not a specialistin psychology and the psycholinguist is not aspecialist in generative grammar: they need there-fore to interact with each other in order to identifythose concepts and processes from their respectivedisciplines that are analogously related to eachother. These will serve to formulate as guidelinesfor the curriculum study cell, r the set of opera-tions that characterize the composing process.

To Accomplish Objective 2: Prose samples will becollected from randomly selected pupils in grades4-12 during the academic year 1965-66. The analy-sis of these prose data will make use of sentenceevaluation techniques developed in CooperativeResearch Project 1746. These sentence evaluationtechniques consist of a Structural ComplexityScore (SCS), a Proportion of Well-Formed Sen-tences (PWF), and an Error Change Score (ECS).The SCS is obtained by adding the number of con-joining, embedding, and deleting operations thatoccur in the production of a particular sentence.The PWF is obtained by dividing the total numberof sentences into the number of well-formed sen-tences. The ECS is obtained by identifying occur-rences of grammatical mis-operations according tothese five classes: 1) mis-application of a trans-formational operation, 2) use of one transforma-tion when another is required, 3) use of a trans-formation when none should have been used, 4)omission of a required transformation, 5) co-occurrence error: the use of mutually exclusivegrammatical elements in simple sentences or insimple sentences underlying complex sentences.Such an analysis of student writing will provide anapproximate grade scale expectation of gram-matical mis-operations for grades four to twelve.

This scale, together with the guidelines suppliedby specialists, will be used to prepare the prelimi-nary composition units during the year. The scaleitself will be revised and formulated during thethree years of the demonstration and evaluationstage.

To Accomplish Objective 3: The Center Staff willdevelop a preliminary set of materials based onthese sources: 1) guidelines formulated by special-ists in linguistics and psycholinguistics, 2) class-room tryout for materials developed in CRP #1746,and 3) materials developed from other researchstudies, The materials at this point will not havebeen sequentially ordered. Staff teachers will usethese materials in various classrooms throughoutthe cooperating school system. Concurrently, theywill be meeting in seminars with the Center Staffto learn how to analyze prose by use of the SentenceEvaluation Techniques of CRP #1746, to sharefindings with other teachers in exploring the feas-ibility of new curricular materials with pupils, torevise and expand materials, and to sequence ma-terials for grades seven to nine.

To evaluate the over-all effectiveness of thecomposition programs, samples of writing will beobtained during the first three months of each yearand during the last three months of the final yearof the demonstration stage. The experimentalclasses will be exposed to a study of the composi-tion packages; the control classes will study theconventional programs of composition. A Sen-tence Evaluation Techniques Score will be com-puted for each pupil. The principal comparisonwill be made by analysis of variance applied to thegains in scores, as in CRP #1746.

To Accomplish Objective 4: During the summerimmediately following each instructional year, theCenter Staff will prepare teacher guides, each con-taining: 1) a comprehensive exposition of thegrammatical theory underlying the program, 2) abrief resume of the grammatical instruction that ispresumed to precede and to follow the guide'sscope, 3) illustrative exercises and drills for pupils,4) detailed instructions for using pupil materials,and 5) a description of how the materials were de-veloped.

University of OregonThe Oregon Curriculum Study Center, which be-

gan work in September 1962, under the directionof Albert R. Kitzhaber, is entering the final twoyears of its project. The Center is developing acurriculum for grades seven to twelve, which shouldbe adaptable for approximately the upper 85% ofthe students. The curriculum, sequential and co-herent, is being developed along three independentbut interwoven lines: the traditional triad of litera-ture, rhetoric (oral and written composition), andlanguage, with special attention to transformationalgrammar.5

5 For an outline of the rationale of the Oregon Cur-riculum, see PMLA, LXXIX (September 1964, Pt. 2), 73-75.


Curriculum units in the three areas are writtenby teams composed of special consultants, Uni-versity of Oregon personnel, and teachers fromthe schools. When a unit is written, it is tried outin the classrooms of seven cooperating school dis-tricts in Oregon and Washington. The studentpopulation of these districts is varied, rangingfrom predominantly rural (Coos Bay, Oregon) todensely urban (Seattle, Washington). After a unitis tried out, it is revised according to the sugges-tions of the teachers. The revised unit is tried outagain the following year, and is again modifiedafter its second trial.

At the present time, the complete curriculumfor grades seven to eight is being taught for thesecond time, having already been revised onceafter its first trial. The complete curriculum forgrades nine to ten, written during the academicyear 1964-65, is now undergoing its first full-scaletrial in the classrooms. The current year will seethe writing of the curriculum for grades eleven totwelve; 1966 will be devoted to the final testingand revision of the entire curriculum. Tests arebeing prepared to accompany the curriculum. Al-though this phase of the project is currently behindschedule, the assignment of additional item writersis rapidly closing the gap.

An N DEA English Institute, modeled on thosegiven independently by the Oregon Center in thesummers of 1963 and 1964, and closely coordinatedwith the experimental curriculum of the Center,was held during the past summer. Courses wereoffered in Applied Criticism, Rhetoric of Oral andWritten Discourse, and Structure and History ofEnglish. By design, approximately 60% of theseventy-five teachers in the Institute were chosenfrom the seven participating school districts, thusadding substantially to the number of qualifiedpilot teachers in the project. In addition, severalof the seven school districts subsidized other teach-ers from their own staffs to send them to the reg-ular University summer school, in which the samethree Institute courses were also offered. We nowhave in the seven districts a core of nearly 150pilot teachers who have been trained to teach theexperimental curriculum.

LiteratureThe literature curriculum in grade seven intro-

duces the fundamental concepts of Subject, Form,and Point of View around which the six-year se-quence is built. While some lyric material is intro-duced, the bulk of the year's work is concernedwith narrative formsballad, myth, short story,fable. By the end of the year the students are ableto deal with various avenues of approach to litera-ture; they have made a firm beginning in the closereading of various types of narrative; they havelearned to approach a poem without too much trep-idation; and they have begun to develop a famili-arity with an important part of their literaryheritage.

Grade eight introduces other forms of literature,such as drama, the novel, the essay, and auto-biography, as well as continuing with forms intro-duced the previous year. The eighth grade carriesthe curriculum to a logical, though intermediate,conclusion. By the end of these two years the stu-dents will have experienced all the major types ofliterary expression; they will have brought to theirtreatment of these types more mature acquain-tance with key concepts and critical vocabulary;and they will have been introduced to some of thebasic themes with which literature deals.

Grades nine and ten can best be regarded astransitional. One of the major aims of these gradesis to give the students as wide a background aspossible for the work of grades eleven and twelve.Another is to study at a more mature and sophisti-cated level the concepts and genres introduced inthe earliest years, with special emphasis given tothe thematic aspect of literature. Thus HuckleberryFinn, in the tenth grade, is studied both as a narra-tive form with its own individual structure andorganization and as a representative of the journeymotif used as a vehicle for irony and social andmoral criticism. Similarly, the Odyssey introducesthe concept of epic form, while at the same timetreating on a more sophisticated level the mythicaland legendary material studied earlier in myths(grade seven) and Arthurian legends (grade nine).

The curriculum for grades eleven and twelve isonly now being written. Our current thinkingfavors a formalist approach to the major genres ingrade eleven, and a thematic approach cuttingacross generic lines in grade twelve. The one ap-proach provides the x-axis of which the other is they-axis. At the end of the six years, we hope that thestudent will be able to read intelligently and withsome sense of perspective any work he may en-counter in either college courses or recreationalreading.

LanguageIn the language curriculum we have tried to rely

upon sound linguistic scholarship and to givestudents a scientific approach to the structure oftheir language and an appreciation of what lan-guage is. We are developing two areasone con-cerned with grammar, the other with the relatedareas of history, phonology, etc. The grammar istransformational, beginning in the seventh gradewith the basic structure of the "kernel" sentence,defined in eighteen phase structure rules. These areorganized so that they can be expanded periodicallyas students are better able to comprehend linguisticcomplexities. The eighth grade introduces trans-formations, both single base (e.g., questions andpassives) and double base (compound structures,relative clauses leading to adjectives, possessives,etc.). In the ninth and tenth grades we expand thegrammar internally by developing more sophisti-cated notions of the determiner, the negative, theimperative, and various kinds of elements attached

4


to the transitive verbparticles, indirect object,and complements. This much of the curriculum hasbeen written and is being tested.

In the eleventh and twelfth grades we intend tointroduce only a few new elementsderivednominals and modifiers, adverbial clausesbutwill try to draw together concepts which have beendeveloped earlier in order to explore some overalllinguistic principles such as the infinite recursive-ness of language, the necessity of ordering rules in agenerative grammar, the concept of form vs. func-tion, and the cross-classification which occurs. Inthe twelfth grade we hope to relate the transforma-tional approach to syntax to problems of rhetoricand style analysis in literature.

The second part of the curriculum starts in theseventh grade with social and regional variations inlanguage. The eighth grade deals with writing sys-tems and introduces phonology. The ninth andtenth grades include units on the syntax andphonology of Shakespeare. In the last two years weplan to have units on the history of languageboth internal and externaland to touch onmethods of linguistic research as they relate to theorigin and development of language and to lan-guage families.

Rhetoric

The curriculum in rhetoric seeks to teach stu-dents to write and speak effectively. Such acurriculum must face the considerations of purpose,audience, and "voice" from the earliest years. Itmust also, in a sense, be a "how to" curriculum.The three basic kinds of "how to" which undergirdthe work in rhetoric are, first, substance, or how toexplore, systematically and responsibly, the worldof facts and ideas for the subject matter of com-munication; second, structure, or how to give orderand development to this subject matter; and, third,style, or how to use most effectively the specialqualities of words, phrases, and sentences toachieve the rhetorical purpose. These categoriesare, of course, not airtight compartments; they areall part of the rhetorical art. In the "spiral" natureof this curriculum, where skills required at the mostadvanced levels must be worked on at the ele-mentary levels, these terms merely designate ashift in emphasis from one part of this art toanother, not a "topic" to be "mastered" and thenabandoned in favor of something totally new.

Within the three categories of substance, struc-ture, and style, the materials in the new curriculummove, generally, from the familiar to the novel,from the concrete to the abstract, from the simpleto the complex. In the seventh grade, for example,the student begins with what he knows best,people, places, animals, eventsthe familiar andthe concreteand with simple narrative, and someimaginative, writing. In the eighth and latergrades, this emphasis on the student's own personalworld is progressively expanded into more con-ceptual realism. The ninth and tenth grades em-

phasize these more advanced considerations ofsubject, structure, and style by focusing uponvarious purposes for writing and speaking, uponsemantics and logic, upon means of expanding andsupporting generalizations, and upon further imagi-native writing. Planning for the eleventh and twelfthgrades now calls for a stress upon persuasion, in itswidest sense, and a final emphasis, through thepersonal essay, upon a mature and graceful styleas an expression of the final unity and effectivenessof the art of rhetoric.

Purdue UniversityRespectable as the word "integrated" in Pur-

due's project title may be, the less fashionable label"contextual" comes closer to what we are about. Infact, what comes closest of all to pinning down thekind of instructional units we are writing is thesomewhat left-handed label, "opus-centered."Originally we intended this as an ironic epithet. Wewere alluding to "theme-centered units" and suchother centerings as either used El literary work tosupport a sociogram or ignored the literary workaltogether. It was almost as if the work had no rea-son for existing in its own right, as if studying it asliterature were something scurrilous like sex orpolitics rather than something humanizing andcivilizing. One of our first assumptions, then, is that"literature," as Harold Martin has put it, "isquintessentially our subject."

Not that we propose to take anything away fromthe linguists. Certainly the structure of an utterancesignals meaning aside from its lexical content. Cer-tainly our language consists of characteristicsentence patterns. That the most basic of these, thesubject-predicate pattern, transforms to a passive,an interrogative, a negative, an emphatic, a pro-gressive, and so on, is an imaginative re-orderingof what we have always known. Certainly scholar-ship in la .guage history, dialects, and usage shouldmake a difference in what we teach young peopleabout our language. If Miss Fidditch can onlyunderstand cultural levels and functional varietiesof usage (to say nothing of its more ambiguous fiveclocks) she can perhaps be disabused of fixing on"correct" vs. "incorrect." Miss Fidditch has, afterall, been slavish to robot textbooks of utterances nocivilized person has ever spoken or written. We canonly hope that her successors among teachers andtext writers will be better read. Her text was (and,alas still iswhether traditional, structural, orgenerative) an out-of-context book in which some-body throws a ball in the first sentence; somebodydecorates a room in the second; and in the third, weall cross the Gobi desert at night. Perhaps one rea-son Miss Fidditch is given to devoting an entiresemester to grammar of any kind is that it is sopatently innocuous. She has been browbeaten bythe censors; ideas, as Justice Holmes said, are dan-gerous.

But even as we agree that the language leg of ourtripod has something more to stand on than just


grammar(s), we question whether devoting an en-tire semester to language is pedagogically sound forthe secondary grades. (In graduate or upper collegecourses the splintering is of course more appropri-ate.) Somewhat like the Gleasons of today, but per-haps more like the Kittredges of yesterday, in ouropus units we try a whole-tree approach to literacyand articulateness. Language is an inextricablepart, but only a part, of whatever we read, write,and say. We exploit in our lessons whatever eachliterary work demands in language and rhetoricstudy, but always ancillary to what the opus de-mands that the pupils understand by its viablemeanings through a study of its structure, values,texture, and imaginativeness. In short, literature isour target language. We steep pupils in reading;then we involve them in writing and speaking aboutwhat they have read. We also involve them inwriting and speaking about their personal experi-ences that the literary work echoes. We do net dis-courage them from talking and writing about theirother experiences even if not archetypal and mytho-poetic. But we know that, limited to their own ex-periences so far, they suffer from an insufficiency ofdata. Nor do we stop at merely "furnishing theirminds." We are trying to educate their imagina-tions and their aesthetic sensitivities. Some of ourkinds of lessons are reflected in the following tableof contents for our unit on A Midsummer Night'sDream.Opus Unit for Grade 7 (5 to 6 weeks)PrefacePretest

Initiatory Lessons

1. Teacher's presentation. Short movies on back-grounds. Assignments of further background topics(encyclopedia work).

2. Pupil's oral reports on backgrounds (Shakespeare;Shakespeare's England; Elizabethan theater; sports,pastimes, and revels, including the Night before St.John's Festival).

3. The donnee. Setting (pseudo-Athens accommodatedto Elizabethan England). Dramatis personae (who's whoamong the individuals, the pairs, and the groups). Quizand discussion.

4. The donnee. Plot and sub-plots. Graphs, quiz, anddiscussion. (Optional: The movie may come here, or itmay be reserved, in an academically-talented class, as adessert. In classes of median abilities and below, themovie serves as a gestalt. In fast-track classes the movieis discussed as an art form in its own right, compared andcontrasted with the play.)

5. (or 5 and 6) Pupils follow parallel text as they listento phono-recording. (The Old Vic cut version takes nomore than one class period.)

Developmental Lessons

6. Vocabulary and allusions in context. Research, quiz,and discussion. (Optional: Pupil lexicographers compileAMND Dictionary.)

7. Usage and dialects. Cultural levels and functionalvarieties. Prestige dialects of the lovers; of the tradesmen.Substitution drills.

8. Grammar of AMND. Characteristic sentence-patterns. Transformations of basic patterns. Poetic in-versions. Teacher-pupil dialogue and board work.

9. Genre and mode. AMND as a play, as comedy, asromance, as pageant and dance. Masque and anti-masque.Bottom's skit as parody. Teacher-pupil dialogue. Oralinterpretations.

10. Worlds of the characters: the world of senior au-thority, the world of the lovers, the world of the fairies,the world of the tradesmen. Clash or mesh of these worldsas comedy and art, comedy as incongruity. Bottom's pre-tentiousness, comedy as affectation.

11. Oral interpretation. Pupils read assigned partsaloud.

12. Poetry in AMND. Imagery. Metaphor and otherfigurative language. A M ND's poetry contrasted with itsprose. (T-P dialogue and board work.)

13. Levels of meaning in AMND. Allegory and symbo-lism. (T-P dialogue.)

14. Themes and thematic values in AMND. (T-Pdialogue.) Pupils' one-point speeches in defense of oneinterpretation or another.

15. Expository writing: topics and topic analyses.Board work.

16. Expository writing: from topic to thesis state-ments. Composition laboratory: pupils compose thesisstatements.

17. Expository writing: developing thesis statementsinto short-statement outlines (thesis question, twoanswers, and for each answer at least two supportingcitations from the primary text). Shooting circularreasoning in the answers or arguments. Compositionlaboratory.

18. Expository writing. Pupils write first drafts ofpapers (250 words) in class. Group processing and shar-ing (may carry over to next lesson).

19. Expository writing. Revising first drafts, whichteacher has annotated and returned. (While pupils writerevisions, teacher confers with individuals.)

20. Imaginative writing #1: Informal essays or, asmanageable alternatives, journal-entries in prose or verseon topics elicited by AMND yet related to pupils' per-sonal experiences.

21. Imaginative writing as a discipline. Teacher andpupils settle on one genre (e.g., one of the songs inA M ND). Two or more lessons are then devoted to com-posing and refining songs like the Shakespearean model,but on topics related to the pupil's experiences.

Culminating Lessons (Choice of One or More)22. Pupils produce a broadside ballad sheet (small

group of balladeers). One or two of the ballads or songsmay be sung to guitar accompaniment.

23. Pupils produce their modernized version of"Pyramus and Thisbe."

24. Pupils hold kangaroo court: Egeus vs. the younglovers.

25. Pupils produce a newspaper ("Minerva" or "TheAthenian Gazette" or "The Athenian Craft Guildsman)."

26. Movie (if not previously sl.own) followed by achallenge paper: "Shakespeare as the Fellini of His Day"or any other topic comparing the movie and the Post-Test play.

The opus units prepared under the direction ofArnold Lazarus are addressed to all but remedialseventh graders. We take remedial to mean young-sters retarded more than two grades in their read-

Michael F.

ing. Our lessons are written for median abilities,but each lesson contains "challenge" activities andassignments for the bright; "manageables" for theslow.

It, addition to A Midsummer Night's Dream, wehave written first drafts of units for The Odyssey,Treasure Island, Life on the Mississippi, TheYearling, Kim, The Diary of Anne Frank, Hiro-shima, The Ox-Bow Incident, Visit to a Small Planet,and certain parts of Spoon River Anthology. Thissummer we shall be writing revisions of these unitsand first drafts of units for Aesop's Fables, Job,Ruth, and one or two other worksprose andverse, fiction and non-fiction, classic and con-temporary. The nineteen participating teachersfrom eighteen junior high schools mostly in Indianahave themselves nominated and selected theliterary works.

We have several strategies for measuring howmuch difference, if any, our program makes on our1800 participating youngsters. One of our most ob-jective measures is the ETS "STEP" in READINGand WRITING. Happily we share the STEP objec-tives. We have local as well as national normativedata on the pupils. We know how a pupil not in-volved in opus-centered studies performs at thebeginning and at the end of the seventh grade. Weare also trying to measure or at least put a scale-value on the pupils' growth in expository writing.Fifty-four members of our Purdue English staff,among them most of our senior professors, are read-ing, annotating, and scoring 5400 of the paperswritten by the participating pupils. As we try outthese units in the classrooms of the participatingschools, we keep revising and refining. By thesummer of 1967 we shall submit to USOE the tenunits that have proved most successful in the wayswe have been able to measure. If our experiment issuccessful with seventh graders, we hope to con-tinue our work for the other secondary grades.

Syracuse UniversityThe contract for the Syracuse University-James-

ville-DeWitt Demonstration Center, under thedirection of William D. Sheldon, will be fulfilled inJune 1966. Two purposes will have been accom-plished : the production of ten motion picture filmson reading instruction in secondary schools, and thedevelopment of a Center to demonstrate a sec-ondary school reading program.

The Film SeriesThe film series is designed to aid in-service pro-

grams in school districts which have little or no re-course to university services. The series is directedto teachers of all subject areas, with each film treat-ing a separate topic related to reading instruction atthe secondary level. Particular emphasis is given tomethods and materials by which teachers developsubject-related reading skills as part of their

Shugrue 33

regular instruction. Manuals which guide the view-ers' exploration of the topics supplement the films.Each manual includes illustrative material, pointsfor discussion, suggested activities, and a bibliogra-phy of recommended readings. The title and a briefannotation of each film follows:Film One: "Organizing the Reading Program"

Procedures are suggested for initiating secnndary read-ing programs. Survey of needs, personnel required, alter-native programs and answers to typical questions are ex-plored in this film.Film Two: "Analyzing Reading Achievement"

A social studies teacher compares standardized testscores with results from an informal test which she de-signed to measure performance on reading skills relatedto her subject. She organizes her instruction to meetstudents' needs uncovered by testing. Teachers fromother content areas follow similar procedures.Film Three: "The Handicapped Reader"

Do poor readers suffer from deficiencies in specific skillsor from general lack of ability? This film explores dif-ferences between two students experiencing problems inreading, the methods used to discover the differences,and the instructional procedures which meet their needs.Film Four: "Vocabulary Development"

What can teachers do to help students improve theirreading vocabulary? Instructional techniques are sug-gested and teachers apply them in various subject areas.Film Five: "Developing ComprehenE ton Skills"

How do teachers help students to use appropriateskills as they read their assigned texts? A history teachershows her students how to apply reading skills which arealso emphasized by the reading teacher in the direct-instruction program.Film Six: "Reading to Remember"

Study techniques applied by efficient students are ex-amined and teaching procedures for developing studyskills are illustrated.Film Seven: "The Library and the Reading Program"

The contribution of the library and the librarian to theall-school reading program is shown. However, theemphasis is on ways in which subject-matter teachersguide students in the efficient use of research and studyskills.Film Eight: "Developing Skills for Reading Literature"

Specific skills needed for reading imaginative litera-ture are developed in brief excepts from lessons at variousgrade levels.Film Nine: "Efficient Reading"

Good readers can become better readers by applyingtheir skills more efficiently. Seniors develop this efficiencyin an Advanced Reading Class. The film examines variouspressure devices aimed at increasing rate of reading.Film Ten: "Report from the Reading Coordinator"

This film highlights how various resource people helpteachers to implement a program for teaching reading intheir subject areas.

The Demonstration CenterDuring the three years of the project, an all-

school reading program which can be studied as amodel by teachers and administrators fr-m otherschools has been developed. As part of this project,the Jamesville-DeWitt School District has been


host to visitors from various states who have con-ferred with the coordinator, observed classes, talkedwith teachers, and viewed and evaluated variousfilms in the making. The project will be concludedwith an Invitational Conference on SecondaryReading on 20-21 May. The films will be shown anda report given on their field-testing. Speakers willdiscuss the importance of three aspects of theCenter: School Centered Research; In-serviceEducation; Secondary School Reading.

Tuskegee InstituteOn 1 October 1964 the Department of Health,

Education, and Welfare approved a researchproject at Tuskegee Institute, Alabama, under thedirection of G. T. Dowdy. The primary objective ofhis project was to identify the causes of functionalilliteracy among adults in Macon County, in whichTuskegee Institute is located. The secondary objec-tive was to develop new ways to teach functionalilliterate adults communication skills: speaking,listening, reading, and writing; computative skills:addition, subtraction, division; the importance ofcivic responsibility; good health and sanitationhabits.

In an attempt to achieve the secondary objec-tive, five teaching centers were opened, three in themost rural sections of the county and two on thecollege campus. The centers were open to workerswho were functioning at or below the eighth-gradelevel. Although adults who participated in theclasses on the campus initially encountered as muchdifficulty as those attending rural centers, they soonbegan to progress more quickly. An initial extendedperiod of oral conversation and observation awak-ened the curiosity and interest of the participants.A period of testing and observation followed. Testsrevealed that two-thirds of the class had received nophonetic training in previous grades, knew littleabout grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and readpoorly.

A preparatory unit on vocabulary explorationwas introduced in game form. Each member of theclass was called upon to say a word beginning with"A." After each person had responded, the gamesproceeded with each member saying, defining, andspelling the word that he or she had said. This pro-cedure continued throughout the alphabet. Somemembers of the class who had not completed thefirst grade were able to participate by using verysimple words. The results of this exploratory unitserved as a planning index for the instructors.

The oral conversations, the diversity of the par-ticipants' interests, and the results of the testsspurred the instructors to write short stories uniquetc the indigenous setting. These short storiestreated a variety of simple topics of great interestto the participants: good family relationships, read-ing and comprehending application forms for em-ployment, how to approach officials in publicoffices, seeking employment intelligently, and good

table manners. Having discussed these stories, theinstructors moved into areas of day-to-day living:proper letter writing, proper check writing, makingaccurate orders to mail order companies, preparingfamily budgets, grocery lists, and filling out appli-cation blanks. It was appalling to note how muchsome conventional adult educators have taken forgranted. Functional illiterate adults must beviewed in the academic sense as "children," but byvirtue of age and experience they must be treated asadults who have much to offer, but have never beengiven an opportunity to do so. True, they cannotwrite letters, checks, mail orders, or even theirnames, but when they are exposed to academic ex-periences great abilities may be unlocked. Once theadult educator can successfully identify the par-ticipants' areas of interest, the teaching process andthe learning process become a fascinating intellec-tual exercise for the participants. For example, inone rural class the twenty participants were askedto select from one hundred short motion picturefilms those they would like to see, write, and talkabout. In the selection of the films, the democraticprocess was taught and applied. Because time didnot permit showing the thirty films initially recom-mended, the participants voted on the twelve whichcould best fit into the teaching schedule. At thatmoment many in the class understood the demo-cratic process for the first time. When they votedon two films entitled "Welcome to Washington"and "Hunting Opossum," "We:come to Washing-ton" got eleven votes and "Hunting Opossum" gotnine votes, even though this was a rural area. Theopossum hunters took their defe-t gracefully, ra-tionalizing, of course, that they knew somethingabout opossum hunting and nothing about Wash-ington.

We have found films extremely useful in attract-ing the attention of functionally illiterate adults,providing, of course, that they themselves select thefilms which interest them. After each film each par-ticipant was asked to tell what he saw and re-membered about the film. The instructor, and insome instances recording machines, recorded exactlywhat was said by the participants. At a subsequentclass meeting, the participants were asked to writewhat they said they remembered about the film.Even if the participant had never before written,the instructor showed him how to hold a pencil andto write what he had seen. Sometimes what one re-membered about the film could not have been saidin worse English, but he was shown how to write itdown. When everyone in the class had finishedwriting his resume, the instructor discussed eachpaper and then asked the class to write what hadbeen said in correct English. The instructors usedthe films which the participants selected to developor improve memory span, writing, reading, speak-ing correct English, and pronunciation.

In the five centers the instructors maintainedeighty-five per cent of the participants in class. The


functional illiterate adults accepted their instruc-tors as persons with whom they could fraternize inthe process of learning how to read, write, and speakgood English. The interests of the participants wereaccurately identified. Participants were treated onthe basis of individual need, and dedicated teachersgave much more than required.

It has been our experience that there are no poorstudents in the field of informal adult education,but that there are several areas in which the teacherof adults can commit serious errors difficult to over-come. In our judgment, the most important phasein teaching functional illiterate adults English orany other subject matter is the orientation phase.Two or three weeks of purely informal discussionson matters of interest to the adults are by no meanstoo much. These discussions should serve two basicpurposes: 1) getting to know the participants andtheir problems better, and 2) a demonstration ofspeaking proper English by the instructor.

University of Wisconsin

The Wisconsin English Study, now in its thirdyear of operation, is a far-flung, statewide programof in-service education, involving every grade levelschool teacher of English who consents to join theactivities of the Center. In a continuing awarenessof the need to meet and understand new professionaland practical changes in English, more than 8000elementary-secondary teachers and administratorshave become voluntarily involved during the firsttwo years in developing sound approaches to theteaching of literature, speaking, and writing. Thisstatewide cooperate effort brought about two ex-perimental K-12 guidelines, Teaching Literature inWisconsin, published in January 1965, and Teach-ing Speaking and Writing in Wisconsin, publishedin January 1966.

The principal aim of this Center is to involveevery school system, every separate school, and, sofar as is feasible, every teacher concerned with thelanguage arts. The anticipated outcomes are two-fold: 1) to bring to teachers new ideas, fresh ap-proaches, and stimulating materials to awaken anew interest in the language arts, leading to betterteaching and the improved performances of stu-dents, and 2) to create, test, try experimentally, andfinally to adopt sound curriculum materials result-ing in a developmental pattern of growth from kin-dergarten rough grade twelve in literature andreading, in written and spoken English, and inknowledge of the English language. The final goalis the publication of three curriculum guides settingforth a growth curriculum in the English languagearts.

The marked success of working closely with thepresent network of teachers is principally due tothe operational structure of the Project itself.Jointly sponsored by the State Department ofPublic Instruction in collaboration with the Wis-consin Council of Teachers of English, the Wiscon-

in Speech Association, the Wisconsin Council ofTeachers of English, the Wisconsin JournalismTeacher-Adviser Council, the nine WisconsinState Universities, and the University of Wisconsin,Madison-Milwaukee, the Study is a continuation ofa statewide curriculum activity initiated in 1959.Herein lies the leadership and machinery to under-take such an ambitious approach to curricular ex-ploration. This strong alliance represents a flexiblecadre of experienced educators readily available andwilling to assist the Project staff when called upon.To date, every University asked to assist theProject has given generously of its services andfacilities to help promote the six invitational work-shops held on its cr.' :opuses. The two-week creativewriting workshops in literature and in speaking andwriting were held in the summer at the State Uni-versities of Stevens Point in 1964 and River Fallsin 1965. Four additional one-week invitationalworkshops met concurrently at the State Univer-sities of Eau Claire, Oshkosh, Whitewater, andPlatteville. Most of the special committee and con-ference meetings were held at the University of Wis-consin-Madison.

Beginning the concentration in speaking andwriting in August 1964, Dr. Robert C. Poo ley andDr. Leonard V. Kosinski, Director and AssociateDirector of the Project, have been writing ma-terials, distributing informational bulletins, andconducting meetings to discuss the issues raised byteachers of English throughout the state. TheDirectors have made more than one hundred per-sonal visits to schools in all parts of Wisconsin inthe second year, reaching over 5000 teachers.

To aid the discussions of teachers who are plan-ning curriculum changes and improvement in theteaching of writing and speaking, two series of bul-letins were issued from October 1964 to May 1965,one for teachers of grades K through 6 entitledEnglish Encountered, and the other for teachers ofgrades 7 through 12 entitled Secondary EnglishBulletin. Subjects such as Principles in Speaking,Principles in Writing, Creative Writing, ThemeEvaluation, and Composition Assignments weredeveloped for discussion and group response. Eachmonth more than 3000 copies reached teachers inmore than 250 voluntary committees. In largerschool districts, such as Milwaukee, Green Bay, andWest Allis, additional copies of the elementary andsecondary bulletins were used as focal points of dis-cussion among thousands of teachers at their de-partmental meetings. Responses from group leadersindicated a high degree of interest and a rewardingdevelopment of ideas. The summaries of these ideasare being carefully assembled in the CurriculumProject office for use in preparing a statewide curric-ulum guide.

Although the project will publish three experi-mental series devoted to literature, the expressivearts, and the English language, we do not view theEnglish Language Arts as separate or separable.


On the contrary, we hold tho strongest convictionsconcerning the essential integration of experiencewith one's native language. Wt, hold that reading,writing, speaking, and listening are forms of experi-ence with English which are applicable to prac-tically every English language lesson. Therefore,even though Teaching Speaking and Writing in Wis-consin is devoted to a growth curriculum, it alsoassumes that speaking and writing are essential tothe study and appreciation of literature. In thiscontext literature should contribute much of thecontent of programs of speaking and writing. Simi-larly, although the forthcoming third volume will bedevoted to language and grammar, we conceive thatthe purpose of knowing about language is to be ableto use it effectively, and that grammar as a systemof describing English is useful principally in devel-oping command of the patterns of English structurefor more mature speaking and writing.

The findings of a recent inv43tigation, Survey ofTeachers of English in the State of Wisconsin, con-ducted by Dr. Poo ley and Dr. Ruth Falk, Projectresearch assistant, were published in September1965. This survey asked important questions aboutthe preparation and teaching conditions of teachersof English at the seventh through twelfth gradelevels. A total of 3123, or nearly 91 percent, of theteachers of English responded to a questionnairesent from the Project Center. Much of the credit forcomputing the returns belongs to Mr. Donald Rus-sell, Director, and Mrs. Barbara Berg of the DataProcessing Division of the State Department of

Public Instruction. Special thanks are also given toProfessor Jarvis E. Bush, Executive Secretary ofthe Wisconsin Council of Teachers of English, forarranging to send the Survey as a Special Bulletin(Number 12) at no cost to the active 7-12 gradelevel committees of the Project and current mem-bers in good standing of the WCTE. (Additionalcopies are available at 500 a copy from the Council'soffice, Wisconsin State University-Oshkosh, Osh-kosh, Wisconsin.)

The second year of the Project led to the produc-tion of the materials at the creative workshop lastsummer, allowing eighty selected elementary andsecondary teachers to discuss and evaluate them atthe four summer one-week workshops. TeachingSpeaking and Writing in Wisconsin has been care-fully edited and written into final form (November1965) and is earmarked for early publication. Theform and style of this second compendium will besimilar to Teaching Literature in Wisconsin. Thepolicy of distributing over 4000 free copies to everyWisconsin elementary and junior and senior highschool by the State Department of Public Instruc-tion will be continued as in the previous year. Some6000 additional copies of Teaching Literature inWisconsin were ordered last summer directly fromthe publisher to be distributed to the NDEA Insti-tutes. In January 1967 the Directors hope to intro-duce the third and last experimental compendium,Teaching the English Language and Grammar inWisconsin.

Documents

NEW MATERIALS FOR THE TEACHING OF ENGLISH, THE