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Life Arts    H3'ed 3/23/24

Thomas J. Farrell on His Most Memorable Year (REVIEW ESSAY)

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Now, in Donald Lazere's massive 575-page 2005 textbook/reader titled Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy: The Critical Citizen's Guide for Argumentative Rhetoric (Paradigm Publishers), in Chapter 15: "Thinking Critically about Political Rhetoric" (pp. 351-373), Lazere sets forth a fourfold schema for categorizing journalists and commentators (p. 360; but also on the inside of the back cover): (1) Left; (2) Liberal; (3) Libertarian; and (4) Conservative. Lazere categorizes Jonathan Kozol as being in the (1) Left category. However, as far as I can tell, Jonathan Kozol's impassioned books had no appreciable impact on K-through-12 education in the United States.

Now, apart from open admissions at the City University of New York, open admissions was also advocated in connection with two-year community colleges - which were spreading like wildfire in the late 1960s and early 1970s. For example, Joseph P. Cosand (1914-1999) was a notable advocate nationally for both open admissions and two-year community colleges. But on Lazere's fourfold schema of journalists and commentators, how would Joseph P. Cosand as a commentator be categorized? Ah, but he was not a political commentator, so perhaps he should not be categorized in terms of Lazere's fourfold schema.

Nevertheless, I would categorize Joseph P. Cosand, Mina P. Shaughnessy, Theodore L. Gross, Edward Quinn, Sarah D'Eloia, Walter J. Ong, and myself as being in the category (2) Liberal. But I would categorize Donald Lazere as being in the category (1) Left. (I discuss Joseph P. Cosand below.)

Now, Lazere also constructs a fourfold schema for categorizing media outlets: (1) Left; (2) Liberal; (3) Liberal-to-Conservative; and (4) Conservative. He categorizes the New York Times as being in the (2) Liberal category.

In Lazere's "Acknowledgments" (p. x), he says, "Chapter 15 was developed from 'Teaching the Political Conflicts: A Rhetorical Schema' in College Composition and Communication, volume 43 (May 1992): pp. 194-213."

Subsequently, Lazere published a brief (400-page) second of Reading and Writing for Civic Literacy: The Critical Citizen's Guide for Argumentative Rhetoric with Routledge in 2009. Then Lazere and Anne-Marie Womack published a 338-page third edition with Routledge in 2020.

Now, for further information about the beautiful and charismatic and inspiring Mina Shaughnessy, see Jane Maher's sharply focused 1997 book Mina P. Shaughnessy: Her Life and Work (National Council of Teachers of English). In it, Jane Maher (born in 1947) of Nassau Community College in Garden City, New York, notes how widely Shaughnessy's 1977 book Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing, mentioned above, was reviewed.

In Maher's "Works Cited" (pp. 311-313), she lists the reviews in alphabetical order by the reviewer's last name: it was reviewed (1) by Alison Bernstein in School Review (February 1978): pp. 292-294; (2) by C. Michael Curtis in the Atlantic Monthly (September 1977): p. 75; (3) by Maurice Hungiville in the Chronicle of Higher Education (April 4, 1977): p. 18; and (4) by Sandra Stotsky in the Harvard Educational Review (December 1977): pp. 594-597.

In Maher's "Works Cited," she also lists eulogies delivered by Mina Shaughnessy's friends after her death in 1978 at the age of 54: (1) by Irving Howe, (2) by Leonard Kriegel, (3) by Edward Quinn, (4) by Adrienne Rich, and (5) by Lottie Wilkins - all delivered at City College on December 8, 1978. In the main text of Maher's book, she discusses the eulogies (pp. 236-247).

Now, in Maher's sharply focused 1997 biography of Mina Shaughnessy, she mentions my 1973 doctoral dissertation (p. 137), but she does not advert explicitly to my ninety-page review of related literature in it. In one of my conversations with Mina Shaughnessy in 1975-1976, she asked me about one specific work that I had discussed in my ninety-page review of related literature - but I did not mention this to Maher when she interviewed me by phone for her 1997 book. Maher also reports that when Mina Shaughnessy at the systemwide Instructional Resource Center, had me as one of many guest lecturers at her seminar and that I "discussed linguistics and [my] interpretation of Walter Ong's work in the field [of basic writing]" (pp. 175-176).

Because Maher makes certain cogent observations about Mina Shaughnessy in the paragraph in which she mentions me and my work, I want to quote much of that paragraph here:

"[Mina] was determined to use the same techniques in her involvement at the [CUNY systemwide] Instructional Resource Center that she had used at City College, only this time, she would draw on the expertise and experience of faculty from throughout the CUNY system, involving as many people as possible, convinced that the exploration of a field as new and challenging as basic writing should not be done alone. She never perceived herself as an expert, much less as the expert. Although she was, as Ed Corbett has said, one of the 'big names' in composition, she was still most comfortable and secure (and successful) in the role of disseminator" (p. 175; her italics).

As to the techniques that Mina Shaughnessy had used at City College, I turn to Sarah D'Eloia Fortune and Barbara Quint Gray's "Preface" in their 1984 textbook Experience to Exposition: Patterns of Basic Writing, mentioned above (pp. xix-xx). In it, they say, "The seeds of this book were planted in weekly meetings of five colleagues at The [sic] City College of New York - Mina Shaughnessy, Blanche Skurnick, Alice Trillin, and ourselves. Basic writing teachers in The City College English Department, we met for several years in the mid-1970s to work out a series of lessons for teaching sentence grammar to adult beginning writers. Out of these meeting, supported through the CUNY Instructional Resource Center, grew The English Modules, a series of instructional videotapes with coordinated workbook units published jointly by the City and State of New York.

"People familiar with the Modules will recognize their pedagogical sequence as well as some of their original exercises in this text. We are indebted to our three Modules coauthors for the pieces of their work that are woven into the fabric of this book, for their endorsement of this project, and most importantly, for their insights into teaching and language that have remained part of our work and thought since the group disbanded in 1978" (p. xix).

However, in Maher's sharply focused 1997 book about Mina Shaughnessy, she says nothing about The English Modules, even though Mina Shaughnessy was involved in their production.

Now, because I have mentioned the 1974 position paper "The Students' Right to their Own Language" above, I also want to quote here the quotation about it from Robert Lyons that Maher includes in her sharply focused 1997 book about Mina Shaughnessy:

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Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book (more...)
 

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