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“The Reorganization of English in the Secondary Schools”
This report concluded that English education in the public schools should grow increasingly utilitarian, weaning younger children from expressive forms of writing to increasingly practical applications in order that students become efficient workers. -
Period: to
The Period Between the Wars (1917-1945)
The expressive movement (self-expression and creative writing), featuring the "unique individuality and creative potential of each child" (p. 260), was a result of the child development study movement (G. Stanley Hall as the representative) and the arising liberal awareness against the old social constraints and "efficiency" ideology. “The personal and individual is always prior to the public and society, the latter being the effect of the former” (p. 261). -
Challenges from Behaviorism
The value of expressionistic writing is challenged as learning takes a quantitative turn. Edward L. Thorndike argued that learning could be measured. Students' progress (as well as teachers' effectiveness) began to be tested. Writing began to be evaluated on a scale. These informative but culturally biased tests deepened racial, gender, and class divides. -
Challenges from Social Rhetorics
During the years spanning the Great Depression, college courses inspired by Dewey and Scott also challenged expressive writing. Socially-based, politically-oriented rhetoric looked to the community rather than the individual to solve the economic crisis. The excesses of capitalism were blamed for the state of the economy; meanwhile, expressionists persisted in looking inward to the individual to address the country's ills. -
An Experience Curriculum
In 1935 the NCTE published a report “An Experience Curriculum in English” in which they threw up their hands and concluded that any attempt to standardize teaching would be ridiculous given the diversity in populations and communities in the US. Social and liberal approaches were combined to assert that while experience was the best teacher, curriculum should consists of “well-selected experiences”. -
Writing as Art
For expressionist rhetoric, writing is art and can be learned, by all, rather than taught. Teachers' role, therefore, is to provide an environment for students to learn. Teachers also need to focus on both process and product, making the writing related to students' personalities, cultural values, and the "true self." Theodore Baird (Amherst) https://www.amherst.edu/library/archives/holdings/amherst-college-oral-history-project/theodore-baird
