| Despite dramatic growth in the study of writing and writing instruction since World War II, historians of composition studies have largely neglected this period. Histories of composition studies have tended to be broad and sweeping, seeking to illuminate large trends and movements; they have relied almost exclusively upon documentary analysis; and the recent histories have sought to taxonomize the field into overneat categories, supporting a favored classification and describing the history with agonistic, heroes-and-villains images.;In this study, I seek to illuminate aspects of composition studies during the post-war period by providing case histories of two major figures in the discipline: Edward P. J. Corbett and Janet Emig. The aim is twofold: to provide information about writing instruction and writing research and to introduce readers in the field to the case history approach.;A case history consists of a triangulation of documentary analysis, oral history interviews, and a case study focus on individuals. Through such a triangulation of methods, the historian can generate historical analogues to ethnographic "thick descriptions": detailed accounts of the history of composition studies within the rich context of individuals who have lived it. Case histories provide three kinds of historical knowledge: new "factual" information; information about the informant's motivations, inner feelings, and values; and generalizations based on negotiations with subjects. These generalizations are inevitably more tentative than those of more sweeping traditional histories, but they are also more soundly anchored in the specific details of the subject's career and are thoroughly tested through the negotiations that invariably occur during oral history interviews. In Chapter II, I fully discuss the limitations and the advantages of this methodology.;The extensive case histories presented in this dissertation provide two general insights. First, by presenting the multiplexity of each scholar's thought, they problematize the neat categories to which these scholars have been relegated by recent taxonomies of composition studies. And they reveal both the similarities and the vast differences in the ways composition scholars have related to the discipline. |
