I want to start with Adams because I’ve always liked where she ends: “The professional discourse and teaching experience of rhetoric, composition ... technical writing and business writing need to blur" (152). Adams made this claim in the early 1990s at a point in time when Composition seemed to be establishing a more stable disciplinary identity. I’m not sure where the claim places Adams in regard to debates about pedagogy, but I have a sense she wasn’t really interested in drawing those boundaries with this particular historical narrative.
Adams’ narrative is useful for my purposes of identifying relationships and tensions (pedagogical and curricular) because it provides the appropriate historical framework in which to position the various disciplinary debates. From her emphasis on the emergence of "advanced composition" courses at Harvard and Yale to the departure of specialized writing instruction at the land grant schools, Adams is sketching the evolution of English, Composition, Rhetoric (and later, Technical Communication) as modern academic disciplines. When she notes that A.S. Hill “envisioned advanced composition as being devoted not to textbook study or college formats but to experience with professional forms ... in projects of the students' own choosing" (43), Adams identifies a point at which writing instruction in America begins to creep away from the humanist curriculum that viewed language simply as a tool to persuade -- of rhetoric as a means of civic engagement. Positivism and the emphasis on clarity, conciseness, and objectivity was the focus of the new composition course as pressure was placed on colleges and universities by an increasingly industrialized private sector. Schools could no longer focus on classically trained rhetoricians. "As the classical education gave way to specialized college majors, students no longer received the earlier required rhetorical training... as commerce and publication took on an ever great prominence ... the elite few who graduated planned on becoming civic and business leaders. How would these students achieve the high level of skill expected by the public and required by their professions" (14-5)? Adams notes that the "impetus for more and better writing instruction came not only from critics of high school and college courses. It also came from business and industry, and especially from professionals reacting to the writing in their own disciplines... In the expanding scientific community, critics responded to the professionals' inability to communicate complex ideas to various audiences ... they found these young graduates to be barely literate--and not even aware of their deficiencies" (26-7).
During the early part of the 20th century we begin to see schools supplement the freshman composition course with specialized writing courses specific to majors. The tension with English and the not yet fully defined disciplines of Composition and Technical Communication emerge from this point. "As writing teachers broke away from traditional methods of teaching composition, their classes began to seem like an anomaly in the English department. And the teachers themselves did not fit in there since they rarely met the increasing requirements for graduate education and scholarly publication... Technical and business writing teachers never secured enough support from engineering, agriculture or business schools to develop as a separate unit. These teachers generally remained as peripheral members of English departments" (148). It would not be until the late 1940s/early 1950s when technical writing courses entered many colleges to prepare students for modern communications... "English majors began to specialize in technical writing and editing" (149).
Adams illustrates the birth of the English department in the 1870s as the owners of grammar rules, exercises, spelling, vocabulary, and the new concept of "English Composition." We can see from these early constructions the obvious tensions that would ultimately lead to disciplinary divisions (and diversions) as the college curriculum continued to become increasingly specialized throughout the industrial revolution and beyond. It would not be until the late 1960s when CCCC found it necessary to define advanced composition. And while light on specific curricula advice, CCCCs did tether professional writing (forms) to the composition curriculum -- specifically within the advanced composition course.
Adams notes that CCCC’s lack of clarity led to a "narrowing, an immersion into one specific field... advanced writing instruction never found a secure niche. For upper-division writing instruction to flourish, it would have to be designed by specialists who could gear it to one student population and to one type of writing" (60). This same time period saw renewed interest in rhetoric, which led to the vocal reevaluation of the current/traditional paradigm of the freshman program. Modern rhetorical theory began to influence technical writing instruction, creating more emphasis on the writing process and on audience analysis, "bringing to the discipline well-trained writing professionals who were not awaiting their chance to escape to literature courses" (150).
So there is my corner stone. I have a feeling I’ll be returning to Adams’ seemingly neutral narrative as I flesh out the historical disciplinary relationships and tensions I’m looking for.
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