What Is English? (Studies, 2) - Softcover

What Is English? is Peter Elbow's challenging and very personal "picture of a profession that cannot define what it is." Written in a lively and accessible style, What Is English? contains Elbow's reflections on the 1987 English Coalition Conference and on its implications for the profession as a whole. Elbow identifies and tackles the major areas addressed by the conference: the question of what "English" means the place of theory in reading and writing the conflict between those who teach literature and those who teach writing the controversies surrounding the canon the nation's increasing preoccupation with assessment To include the voices of others who attended the conference, the book contains "interludes"-short pieces between chapters-in which teachers from all levels of instruction express their feelings and describe their experiences.

Peter Elbow is Professor of English at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Before writing A Community of Writers, he wrote two other books about writing: Writing Without Teachers and Writing with Power: Techniques for Mastering the Writing Process. He is author of a book of essays about learning and teaching: Embracing Contraries. He also wrote Oppositions in Chaucer, as well as numerous essays about writing and teaching. His most recent book, What Is English? explores current issues in the profession of English. He has taught at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Franconia College, Evergreen State College, and the State University of New York at Stony Brook--where for five years he directed the Writing Program. He served for four years on the Executive Council of the Modern Language Association and is now a member of the Executive Committee of the Conference on College Composition and Communication. He has given talks and workshops at many colleges and university. He attended Williams College and Harvard University and has an M.A. from Exeter College, Oxford University, and a Ph.D. from Brandeis University.