Kelly Ritter's book, Who Owns School? Authority, Students, and Online Discourse, part of Hampton Press's New Dimensions in Computers and Composition Series, would at first glance appear to be writt...

The literary work of Anzia Yezierska is relevant to the fields of composition, rhetoric, and literacy. Partly in dialogue with the philosophy of John Dewey, it reveals the tensions and conflicts inherent in progressive education, emphasizing how these were viewed through the lens of the immigrant student. Yezierska shows that pedagogical progressivism has had tremendous potential to tap into students’ lived experiences and transform them into more fully realized, engaged citizens, even as she also shows that such power has been constrained by institutional structures.

Pedagogical materials from the early twentieth-century Americanization movement functioned rhetorically as responses to public discourse, which was highly critical of immigrants' language practices. In teachers' journals and language textbooks, educators engaged in a dialogue with the public, seeking to establish themselves as proponents of social progress and cultural stability. They framed English instruction as a tool for a refashioning of the nation and embraced monolingualism as a unifying force within that nation. As educators sought to engage native-born Americans and immigrants alike in the creation of this ideal nation, assumptions about national identity became embedded into pedagogical practices.