A Commentary on "Chapter 4: The Teaching of Poetic Composition in the Later Middle Ages" in A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Modern America

A Commentary on "Chapter 2: The Key Role of Habit in Roman Writing Instruction" in A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Modern America

The dominant impression I have of Roman writing instruction is that the Romans took a comparatively loose set of Greek teaching devices and molded them into a true standardized "curriculum" aimed at producing language facility. This system--and it is indeed a system--helped to Latinize the world conquered by the Roman army; moreover, it was so pervasive that it lasted into the middle ages, reappeared in full force in the Renaissance and eventually found its way into colonial America.

A Commentary on Chapter 3 in A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Modern America

A Commentary on Chapter 8 from A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Modern America

A Commentary on Chapter 7 from A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Modern America

A Commentary on "Chapter 6: Writing Instruction in Great Britain: the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries" in A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Modern America

In my formative years, nearly everything I learned about writing instruction in Great Britain I learned from Winifred Horner. When, years later, she asked me to revise her chapter for this new edition of Short History, I felt honored. Volume editor James Murphy gave his authors marching orders: study reviews of the first edition and answer criticisms raised. Horner’s chapter, on British writing instruction in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, needed to be expanded in several directions. Wales and Ireland needed to be covered, for example, and the discussion of England required some elaboration (Scotland was well represented). Additionally, we needed to address the issue of female education.

A Commentary on "Chapter 1: Ancient Greek Writing Instruction" in A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Modern America

My fondest wish is that I am now standing before you reading this statement about what I learned while researching the chapter on writing instruction in ancient Greece. One year ago, however, when our panel chair and editor James J. Murphy proposed this panel, I knew then that I could only attend if the program came very early in the conference. I should have realized, however, that with James J. Murphy and these colleagues on the dais, CCCC would surely give this panel nothing less than "prime time" in the program. I hope, then, that my writing both will convey what I have learned personally while researching my chapter on writing instruction in ancient Greece and also, and more importantly, my deep and sincere appreciation to Jerry for all that he does for our discipline.

A Commentary on "Chapter 5: Rhetoric and Writing in the Renaissance" in A Short History of Writing Instruction: From Ancient Greece to Modern America

I find it difficult not to apply the “Lessons From The Short History of Writing Instruction to the current debates about how writing might best be taught in the university. At my own campus, like many before it, administrators have discovered (by means mysterious) that “our students don’t write very well.” Therefore, a task force has been assembled and charged, a report written, and deliberations begun about how best to “deliver” writing instruction to California undergraduates in the twenty-first century. Our particular task force has issued a report informed by two “guiding principles:”

1. “Writing instruction and practice is the responsibility of the entire university, not a single department or set of departments.”

   Provenance: 

   Citation Format: Abbott, Don Paul. "Lessons from The Short History of Writing Instruction." The Writing Instructor. 2001. http://www.writinginstructor.com/abbott.html (Date Accessed).

   Review Process: Don Paul Abbott's essay was an invited submission and was reviewed by TWI editors prior to publication.

Peroration by David Blakesley . . .

2001 witnessed the second edition of this already classic work. In celebration of this new edition and TWI's digital debut, we present here a symposium—begun before a packed house at the Conference on College Composition and Communication in Denver in March 2001—on what the writers of each chapter of this new edition learned as they updated chapters from the first edition. In some cases, new authors have joined the effort. Everyone involved, like most in TWI's audience, recognizes that at the very least the future of writing instruction rests on its rich and varied past, ranging from the texts of antiquity to the postmodern, digitized present, and onward to our possible future histories.