Can we bridge the gulf?

Like some of my fellow classmates, I too must admit to being pleasantly surprised by Gerald Graff’s essay entitled, “The Academic Language Gap.”  Fortunately this essay was completely different from his book which we read earlier in the semester.  In this essay I felt that perhaps Gerald Graff was letting more of his personality shine [...]

Read Full Post »

Graff is Relevant!

I truly enjoyed Graff’s article. I can see why Yagelski and Leonard begin the meat of their book with this article, since this “langauge gap” Graff discusses is truly at the root of the English education problem. I  never thought of how problem-focused English studies is. I mean, that is it’s way of being relevant; [...]

Read Full Post »

Will the real Graff please stand up?

OK, maybe I’m missing something, but the Graff that I literally just finished reading in the essay “The Academic Language Gap”, is a completely different Graff that I muddled through a month ago. 
I am surprised to say that I really enjoyed this essay, and found that Graff had a lot of interesting things to say.  [...]

Read Full Post »

Stop Judging me!

I’ll start this post off by saying that I am a British literature fanatic. I focused on British literature, inadvertently at first, in my undergraduate work, and I have been fortunate enough to have landed a job teaching British literature to 12th graders, a job which I have done for the past 3 years. However, [...]

Read Full Post »

And now, for Feminist Theory

Really, Gerald Graff? REALLY?! As if you weren’t insulting enough with the aforementioned little paragraph about one very influential woman, you’ve actually surpassed that lack of class in the second half of the book.
On page 222, Graff finally acknowledges a rather important school of theory: feminism. Now, really, I am not a hardcore, boot-stomping feminist; [...]

Read Full Post »

General Education and New Criticism Sitting in a Tree

The problem with General Education and its marriage to New Criticism was neither General Education nor New Criticism themselves.  I embrace most of what “The Great Books” program represents; I’ve studied Hutchins in the past and found many of his policies to correspond with my own.  Do I think that college students should spend half [...]

Read Full Post »

Sexist Slant

While I am by no means a history buff, or even a slight connoisseur, I still am surprised at how surprised I was to recognize the intensely noticeable absence of women in Graff’s first 100-some pages. Of course, I’m sure that historians recognize and approve of the clear absence of women (especially in those ever [...]

Read Full Post »

Divided Discipline

Overall I found the first half of Professing Literature very interesting, though somewhat overwhelming.  Having never been introduced to the history of the academic English department Graff’s subject was new to me.  As I read the assigned pages for tonight, I realized that the problems we have been discussing in class pertaining to English studies [...]

Read Full Post »

Can’t we all just get along?

The tactit assumption has been that students should be exposed only to the results of professional controversies, not to the controversies themselves, which would presumably confuse or demoralize them.
So if we have learned any key concept so far in this class, it is that the field of English Studies is defined by conflict. What is [...]

Read Full Post »

Oracy and Me

I’ve just completed the third chapter from Graff, and I am presently contemplating the value of oratorical culture in general as well as in my own classroom.  As an undergraduate, I was taught that English in the high school was three essential topics: reading, writing, and speaking.  Obviously, this graduate course has illuminated several other [...]

Read Full Post »