 |
 |
Michelle (et al) Oh boy, what does Scholes argue. I think his point is that English is not a discipline but a field. Discipline implies a kind of coherent and systematic approach that English lacks. He sees part of the demise of English as a loss of the ability to seek truth. He takes on Rorty at this point. He generally advocates a de-emphasis on literature as literature, and an elevation of the teaching of writing. The way he puts it is a fourfold curriculum: 1. theory, by which he means a "canon of methods to be used in studying the three aspects of textuality" 2. history (how to situate a text), 3. production (how to compose a text) and 4. consumption (not the disease but close). He puts consumption last because he says that he is trying to dethrone the "quasi-sacred textual object". He spends a great deal of energy explaining why this needs to occur. He begins by looking at how English has itself dethroned Greek, Latin, and especially Rhetoric in the American academic system. All of this is better handled for the Canadian context by Henry Hubert's introduction to the instructor's edition of _Forms of Writing_ (Margaret P. brought this to my attention--way to go Henry). I agree with Russ that his ideas lack specifics and when they include them they only cloud the issue. At the same time, I've found that his general assessment of the case of English is pretty accurate to my experience. As for your query about "literacy" Scholes is not addressing this directly. He looks at students lack of "textual power", their inability to handle a text-mediated world, and I guess that is what we might call high-level literacy. Well gotta go for now. Hope to hear more Rob Irish