ENG 6939 Fall 2023 Fiscus-Cannaday

This course will detail the history of composition's involvement in language policies in U.S. education. We will begin this course with a basic overview of phonology, syntax, semantics, and morphology. This foundation will help us better discuss issues of language change, language and identity, and linguistic discrimination in the college writing classroom—the subject of inquiry for our semester together. Throughout the semester, then, we will trace the tumultuous relationship between speakers of non-standard varieties of English, speakers of other languages besides English, and prescriptivist tendencies amongst language authorities. We will consider how various language authorities and resultant policies and academic scholarship, have shaped ideologies about what types of communication are privileged in the writing classroom. Throughout this course, we will develop self-reflexivity about our own beliefs about English’s structure and use, our ideologies about teaching “good” writing, and our resultant linguistically responsible pedagogies.