Nancy and Lucille M Schultz: Elaborating our History in the Mid-19th Century

At first I thought this article was truly about Diversity in composition Pedagogy.
Said Schultz, "the landscape of current-traditional paradigm appeared uniform even seamless" and then some,"features of the landscape that initially overshadowed ," and turned out to be "significant markers, ( representing, ) the diversity that characterized the teaching of writing even during a century dominated by Grammar, Rules, Style, and abstract topics."

Quickly I learned that this was not about Diversity but it was a race about compositon methods of teaching. I read on to find out who would win...

It seems that composition teaching on the college level was Still emphasizing Grammar first , followed by Rules , style and Only allowing abstract topics and NO personal writing. While this strong hold had stood it's ground for ... centuries? Quietly teachers , perhaps on the secondary or younger level ( not universities) were trying to find better ways to teach writing, perhaps to see them more engaged in writing and becoming more independent; having a less restricted control over what they wrote about, and actually writing about things they knew about- themselves and their experiences.

This didn't take off for quite awhile as the teachers of younger students did not mix much in those days. They did not have professional journals yet, or not too many and so the university professors did not learn about this new way to teach writing, for a long time.

The teachers of writing for younger students began to publish many books to help their students like "First Lessons " and "First Book of Composition." While John Walker's book called"Easy Rules fo Writing Themes and composing Exercises .." that contained Themes, Regukar Subjects, Easy Essays and Narrative. The theme section included six parts and 21 themes like "Nip sin in the bud." However, the teachers of younger students were giving students pictures and 1-2 prompts of how they could describe the picture, or the scene.

The then dominant thought at the university level was that "students learn to write by learning rules and young writers are not capable of inventing their own subject matter."
Two leaders who helped to interrupt these habits were Charles Morley and John Frost among others.
Morley I believe would give the student a model text to read and also some questions to answer, Then he would ask them to write an essay based on a skeleton of the story.Then the students are asked to write the story over in their own words.

I personally believe that though this will help the young student who may still need that support, that a writing teacher can give even more freedom to the student, For example the student could learn to respond with a personal connection , and so identify with a character or situation or she could write about another story that has some similarities of theme, etc. However I like the idea of giving students questions to answer to get them thinking about the story more in depth.

So eventually teachers like Morley and Frost began to publish and the wheels of writing pedagogy progress began to turn. The idea grew that students can write very good essays in their own voice about things that they knew. I am especially impressed with the idea of encouraging students to write about people and jobs that they knew of: carpenters and farmers , blacksmiths, and shoemakers, and the mason.

I think of all the students I have whose dads work in construction. Only once did I open the opportunity for a boy to write about his dad up on the roof , finishing the tiles. I remember he wrote with pride as he described how he had to throw up the right tool to his dad.
We had just studied Martin Luther King and his years at home with his Mom and Dad and the lessons he learned from them. The prompt was , "What have your parents taught you or what have you learned form them?" I still have a copy of his essay.

Starting tomorrow I will plan to include this kind of prompt for all my students.