I'm delighted to hear about Will's new book! Watch for a collection of
literary memoir essays, Will, by Robert Stepto, due out this fall --I think
one or two of them might be excellent for the text you propose.
all best - Andrea
At 03:19 PM 7/15/1998 -0700, you wrote:
>Here's a general discussion topic & request
>for feedback:
>
>I've recently signed a contract with Broadview press
>to bring out a text on "Writing About Literature: Prose
>Fiction." It's part of the press' new "writing in the
>disciplines" series--one designed to give undergraduate
>readers "insider knowledge" re: writing in various areas.
>
>In my proposal I noted that, unlike creative writing
>courses, where students read examples of
>fine poetry or prose fiction as models to be emulated,
>literature courses ask students to spend most of their
>time studying forms they will never be asked to write.
>My text proposes a teaching/studying aid--a cross between
>a rhetoric & a casebook (Stephen Crane's wonderful
>short story "The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky" will be
>included in the text, & most advice on composition &
>critical approaches will reference "Yellow sky").
>
>Anyway, here's my question: why, to date, has so little
>been written about the rhetoric of literary essays? I'm
>aware of Fahnestock and Secor's provocative piece, "The
>Rhetoric of Literary Criticism," but there seems little
>substantive (pedagogical) work in this area. I'll be
>looking, for example, at the relationship between
>first-year critical essays & their professional counterparts,
>& considering what students might learn by via a rhetorical
>analysis of professional models & methods & institutional
>contexts.
>
>I'm also interested in what CASLL members might like to see
>in such a text. Where might the sort of standard resource
>(I'm thinking of books by Griffith, Barnet, and Roberts) be
>improved? Do others see potential (as I do) in using
>contemporary rhetoric & composition theory to explain, interpret,
>& teach students how to write essays about literature?
>
>Feel free to reply on or off list. My email address
>is [log in to unmask]
>
>Regards, Will
>
> < < W.F. Garrett-Petts > >
>
> English & Modern Lang ._______
> UCC, 900 McGill Rd | \ / | Voice: (250) 828-5248
> Box 3010, Kamloops .--|.O.|.O.|______. FAX: (250) 371-5697
> B.C. V2C 5N3 Can.__).-| = | = |/ \ | E-mail: [log in to unmask]
> >__) (.'---`.)Q.|.Q.|--. http://www.cariboo.bc.ca
> \\___// = | = |-.(__
> `---'( .---. ) (__<
> \\.-.//
> `---'
>
>
|