Lucille Schultz looks at 19th century composition from a perspective like that of Donald Stewart which opposes a “doctrine of correctness” with a more organic view of composition. Schultz identifies the current-traditional approach as “dominated by grammar, rules, style, abstract topics, and other easily named features” (10) and locates it as the dominant approach in the mid 19th century, especially at the university level. She also identifies an opposing point of view in some text books aimed at younger students.
Her essay takes the form of an argument in which she brings up a point from the dominant theory and opposes it with suggestions from the marginalized texts. To three current-traditional guidelines found the olds texts—“students learn to write by learning rules; young writers are not capable of inventing their own subject matter; and students write about general, abstract topics” (14)—Schultz gives examples of a counter approach in the other texts that value personal experience and learning to write by writing. The purpose of her essay is to acknowledge these dissenting viewpoint and to show how they prefigure much of contemporary composition theory.
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I thought that Shultz use of Walker's work was very similar to what Steward to admonishing as well. However, I am not sure I find all of her possible solutions as truly applicable. I cannot deny that learning to write through writing is a must; severl other members of our group have found the same statement to be true, but her focus on the writing of personal experience frightens me a bit. When I read this portion of her piece, I was reminded of the work I go through in preparing my students for composition. I may be way off here, but I got the feeling Bishop was describing a theory of prewriting, rather than a theory of composition I can teach and that the students can replicate.
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