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Preview this article: On the Neglect of Twentieth-Century Nonfiction: A Writing Teacher's View, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/ce/46/4/collegeenglish13369-1.gif

Like thousands of other composition techers in America, I teach in a writing program that uses an anthology of nonfiction prose. Moreover, like a great many such teachers I enjoy reading and teaching nonfiction prose, and I believe that, by learning to read and analyze such prose critically, students can improve their own writing and, incidentally, their reading too. Still, I am aware that the use of nonfiction in a composition course is not automatically a good; the decisive factor is what teachers have students do with the prose and how they have them do it. Over the past several years I have also become increasingly aware that teachers are pretty much on their own when it comes to analyzing and evaluating nonfiction prose, especially the twentieth-century English nonfiction that comprises the bulk of most composition anthologies. In this article I want, first, to call attention to the paucity of rhetorical and stylistic criticism of twentieth-century English nonfiction and to offer some explanations for this phenomenon; second, to show why this lack of criticism concerns me and should concern other writing teachers; and third, to offer some proposals to remedy the situation.