Abstract

ur story begins, as always, with lack and desire. It's 1975, the year On Righting Writing: Classroom Practices in Teaching English appeared in answer to the great concern for the quality of student (Clapp vii) expressed in an open meeting on classroom practices at the 1974 convention of NCTE. preface to this, the thirteenth report from the Committee on Classroom Practices, further informs us that there was no doubt in the mind of anyone attending the meeting that the improvement of writing instruction should be the theme of this [report] (vii). Whether or not the variety of practices offered in this collection could ever lead to improved writing instruction is anyone's guess. In many respects, any pedagogical notion might provoke good writing, if an intriguing context were also provided. Take Mariana Gibson's strategy, in Students Write Their Own Bicentennial Ballads, of deconstructing familiar bits of Americana like Yankee Doodle with her students, who were then asked to think of contemporary songs that might fit the genre (she suggests Ode to Billy Joe or The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down).