growth through english revisited

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Growth through EnglishRevisited

PETER SMAGORINSKY

o makewayfor some newofficespace,my departmentecently leanedout acollection of books left by long-departed colleagues. Most, it turned out, wereworthyof the dust-bin: books fromthe sixties and seventies that did not withstandthe test of time. While scavenging through the piles of hoary books, however, Icame across a few classics that I added to my own shelves. Among them was a book I

had often seen referenced but had never read,JohnDixon'sGrowth through English, orig-inallypublished in 1967. The version I salvagedwas the third edition from 1975, includingthe new subtitle, Set in the Perspectiveof theSeventies.

For those unfamiliarwith this book, Growththrough Englishwas anelegant summaryof the ideasgenerated throughthe Anglo-AmericanConferenceat Dartmouth College in 1966. This conferencebrought together representatives from the UnitedKingdom,the United States,and Canadato reexam-ine the English curriculumin schools and universi-ties. It was the first and most significant of a seriesof conferences among representatives of English-speakingnationsdesigned to reconsiderthe Englishcurriculum. Until the English CoalitionConferencein the late 1980s (itself informallyknown as "Dart-mouth II"), twas the onlyone of these meetings thatgenerated landmarkpublicationswhose aim was tochange the field. Growththrough Englishsucceedednotablytoward hatend. The DartmouthConferencefound its imperativein its oppositionto the teacher-and-text-centered tradition that dominated schoolsat the time and that has endured through the ages.Indeed, strengthened by policymakersbent on stan-dardizinginstruction and assessment, teacher-and-text-centered instruction is now imposed on theprofession much as it was for Dixon and his Dart-mouth colleagues over thirtyyears ago.

Most current English teachers had not yetentered the profession in the summer of 1966 whenthe Dartmouth Conference took place; manywerenot even born. I myself toiled in a school, but as acallow thirteen-year-old more concerned with im-proving myjump shot than with the state of the artof the field of English. As I anticipated readingGrowth through English in my twenty-fifth year asan educator, I wondered: What would still soundfresh and invigoratingnearlythirty-fiveyears later?Whatwould sound quaintand dated?Was this long-out-of-print book still worth reading?VisionShortly nto my readingI began to see whythis bookhad been so importantthen and why it is still so im-portant today.Dartmouth and Growth through En-glish have been credited with major changes in theteaching of English: the launching of the NationalWriting Project in 1974, renewed attention toRosenblatt's transactional theory of literature, ashift in attention from learning product to learningprocess, and other changes based on the British"growth model" for viewing the discipline of En-glish. Whatwas common to all of these changes was

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a shift in attention from the subject matter of En-glish to the learners in English classes. The Dart-mouth participants, particularly those from theUnited Kingdom, argued that the purpose of en-gagement with an English curriculum was to pro-mote the personal growth of individual learners.This emphasis was a dramaticdeparture from whatwas more typically practiced: a teacher-directedemphasis on the texts themselves. John Dixon ar-gued that emphasizing texts at the exclusion andexpense of the learner prevented students fromgrowing as people through their engagement withliterature, writing, language use, drama, art, andother aspects of a dynamic curriculum.

Indeed, often Dixon's illustrationssound as though they are takenfrom post-millennium schools

rather than schools of the 1960s.

Although these ideas were quite familiartome bythe time I read Growththrough Englishin theyear2001, I foundmyselfexcited andinspiredbythepassion and urgencybehind Dixon'sappeal. I beganto marvelat how pervasivethe influence of this bookhad become; it anticipates virtually every student-centered idea generatedsince. The teacher-and-text-centered curriculumDixon critiquedback then wasmuch the same as the centralized and standardizedcurriculadecreed by manycurrentschool districts.Indeed, often Dixon's illustrations sound asthough they are taken frompost-millennium schoolsrather than schools of the 1960s. He says, for in-stance, that when culture undergoes rapid change,"there is a tendency to panic, to define an externalcurriculum-a system into which teacher and pupilmust fit-instead of helping teachers, in depart-ments and larger groups, to define for themselvesthe order and sequence that underlies their bestwork"(84). This descriptioncould fit manypresent-day school systems that are resorting to centralizedcurricula and standardized assessment as a way toforce uniformity upon increasinglypluralisticcom-munities. Dixon continues by saying:

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Itseemsanelementarymistakeo demand listofskills, roficienciesndknowledges thebasis oranEnglish urriculum. emands f thiskindpro-duce wowrongkinds f answer:nswers odetailedhatwedetermine,et'ssay, hebooksevery hild hould eadbyaparticulartage; ran-swers ogeneralhat heskills, tc.,described renot amenableobeingput norder neafter heother. 85)Yet fact-and-skill-based curriculaare what we con-tinue to see, including those mandated by state de-partments of education. And they are frequentlytied to curriculum-driving igh-stakestests thathaveconsequences for students (promotion), teachers(meritpay),and schools (censure, consolidation,andclosure).The Dartmouth conference was set in a cli-mate where schools followed the sorts of authori-tarian traditions described above. Growth throughEnglish is therefore an argument against what wehave come to think of as traditionalteaching, whatDixon refers to as a curriculum built around skillsandculturalheritage.To Dixon, the consequence ofthese predominant approaches to curriculum de-velopment was that it

leftanuneasy ualismnEnglish eaching. itera-ture tself ended o be treated sagiven,aready-madetructurehatweimitate ndacontentthat shanded ver o us.And hisattitudenfectedcompositionndallworknlanguage. herewasafatal nattentiono theprocessesnvolvednsucheverydayctivitiesstalkingndthinkinghingsover,writing diary r a letterhome,evenenjoyingaTVplay.Discussion asvirtuallygnored, sweknow o ourcosttoday n bothsidesof theAt-lantic. notherwords,hepartof themap hatrelates man'slanguageohisexperience aslargely nexplored.Think f thetrivialessay opicsthat tillresult rom hisignorance.)hepurposesandpressureshatlanguageervesended obere-duced o asimple ormula-alump umviewofinheritance.4)[Author'sote: retainDixon's seofmasculinelanguage, ecognizinghathewas ol-lowinghe conventionsf histime.]In reaction against the skills and cultural

heritage approaches to teaching English, the Dart-mouth participantsproposed a curriculumbased onpersonal growth. As readers of educational debatesare aware, the type of curriculum that Dixon andcolleagues opposed has manyinfluential supporterstoday.These include WilliamBennett, AllanBloom,Chester Finn, E. D. Hirsch, Diane Ravitch,SandraStotsky,George W. Bush, andotherswhose political


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and policy efforts have helped to institute the kindof curriculum that Dartmouth participants arguedso strongly against. In Growth through English,Dixon outlines the tenets of the personal growthcurriculum that was emphasized at Dartmouth:* Discussion should play a greater role inclassrooms. These discussions should in-

volve the students speaking to one anotherabout things that matter to them. Theyshould also allow for expressive or ex-ploratorytalk;that is, discussion in whichthe process of talkingleads to new insights.This emphasis moves awayfrom classroomsin which the recitation of correct answers isthe rule.* Writing should similarly take on an ex-

ploratory character rather than alwaysfollowing formal conventions. Writingcan thus lead to a process of discoveryrather than simply reporting correct orapproved information. It can also be in-formal, creative, and appear in variousand hybrid genres.* Attention to exploratory anguage processessuggests awareness of the process of writ-ing and thinking, rather than focusing onlyon the finished products of student work.Dartmouth Seminar participants"movedfrom an attempt to define 'What Englishis'-a question that throws the emphasis onnouns like skills, andproficiencies, setbooks, and the heritage-to a definition byprocess, a description of the activities weengage in through language"(7).* The lives of the learners ought to play acentral role in their education. Thus theirwriting might concern personal experiencesand their discussions might draw on knowl-edge outside the range of formal academicknowledge. Dixon says, "Ateacher of En-glish, one could well say, spends his time inhis better hours discovering through hispupils .... It follows inevitably if we acceptpersonal experience as the vital core of En-glish work"(48). An emphasis on personalconnection inevitably requires attention tostudents' feelings: "The structure of experi-ence that we aim for in English certainlyinvolves the affective as well as the cogni-tive"(80).* Teachers should be less authoritarian n theclassroom to allow "the liberation of pupilsfrom the limits of the teacher'svision"(48).

This liberationwould include freedomfrom strict adherence to textbook language.Speaking and writing ought to focus moreon students' expression than on the correct-ness of their language;"pupilsshould befreed fromdisabling onceptions fcorrectness' and 'dialect'" (77). Whenstudents share in setting the directionof learning, a continuity in the curriculumwill follow, consisting ofa flowof talkbetweenpupilsand eacher, quest-ingexploratorytmosphere,sensitive ar oemergingeelings nd deasandarichsenseoftheir hematicpossibilitiesndconnections. tthislevel,a teacher'srt ies ntaking pupilwhereheis interested nd n somesensesharingwithhimthesearchornewpossibilities.86)

SSchool ought to provide abundant opportu-nities for students to engage in drama.Bydrama the Dartmouth participantsdid notmean the formal theater. Rather,they sawdramaas a means for students to engage ina kind of talkunavailablethrough mostclassroom activities. Douglas Barnes isquoted as sayingthat dramadiffers romother alk nthreeways:movementandgestureplayalarger art ntheexpressionofmeaning; groupworkingogether ponanimprovisationeedsmoredeliberatelyndconsciouslyocollaborate...;the narrativeframeworkllowsorrepetitionndprovidesunity hatenables heactionmoreeasily o takeonsymbolictatus.Dixon 7)Takentogether,these recommendationssug-

gest the need for what the British called a "growth"curriculum,one thatcentered on the individualstu-dent's personal growth through engagement withthe texts, activities, and processes of English lan-guage arts.These beliefs undoubtedly sound famil-iar to anyone who has regularly read the EnglishJournal or other NCTE journals in the last thirtyyears, who attends NCTE-sponsored conferences,or who participatesat all in professional discussionsabout the quality and process of education. Andnow, as then, the skillsand culturalheritage curric-ula provide the monolith againstwhich this discus-sion takes place.A MoreSocial ViewThus far I have expressed my great admiration forthe vision and urgency that Dixon provided in

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GrowththroughEnglish.What I would liketo donextis focuson what I feel is a shortcomingn thevisionofstudent-centeredlearninghathepresentsand that I feel has been perpetuatedn muchpop-ularwritingabouteducation ince.Thatshortcom-ingis theway n whichpersonalgrowthsvalorizedwithoutattention o the socialresponsibilitieshataccompany rowingandparticipatingn a society.In Growththrough English, personal growth isviewed as an educational nd in itself.Both Dixonandmanycontemporaryducationalwritersappearto assume hat thisgrowthwillalwaysbe noble,re-spectful,andsocially onstructive.Thisassumption ermeates hewriting hatemerged rom he DartmouthConference. ntheirforeword o the third editionof GrowththroughEnglish,Dartmouthparticipants amesSquireandJamesBritton,among he titansof Englisheduca-tioninthesecondhalfof the twentiethcentury, ee"theimpactof the Dartmouthideas-perhaps theDartmouth deal-in theenterpriseof individuals"(x).Theycontinuebysaying hatthedevelopmen-tal view of student-centered ducationoutlinedbyDixon suggeststhat "self-discovery hroughlan-guageandin self-expression,withwriting o real-izeoneself,hasoccupied heattentionofteachers"since the book'soriginal ublicationxvii).The sub-ject of English, they argue, comprises"thesumtotal of the planned and unplannedexperiencesthrough anguageby meansofwhich a childgainscontrol of himself andhis relationswith the sur-roundingworld"(xviii).These relations, as ex-pressed in Growththrough English, are alwaysgratifying nd harmonious.Theyare alsobyprod-ucts of realizingoneself,which shouldbecome thecentraloccupationof school.Myconcernwiththisaxiom-that personalgrowthand realization re the primarypurposeofeducation-comes from the fact that the personalgrowthcurvesof individuals ften come at the ex-pense of the goals and growthof others. I amtempted to excuse this oversight in Dixon'swritingby considering hat Growththrough Englishis aworkof rhetoricdesigned to establish the legitimacyof learners' concerns and constructions as a coun-termeasure to the ubiquitous skillsand culturalher-itage curricula. He therefore needed to make astrong case, one unencumbered by attention to thepower relationships through which each person'sgrowth affects that of others. Yet the absence of at-tention to this facthasled, I think,to aromanticcon-

ceptionof the individual tudentin much educa-tionalwritingsince. By elevatingthe individual'sgrowthas the objectof education, he Dartmouthtradition asoverlooked he needto takeamoreso-cialview of teachingandlearning.

My concern with this axiom-thatpersonal growth and realization

are the primarypurposeof education-comes from thefact that the personal growth

curves of individuals often comeat the expense of the goals

and growth of others.

I wouldlike to illustratemy concernswithsomeexamplesromclasses havetaught, bserved,or readaboutwherestudents'personalgrowthbe-came aproblem or other membersof the commu-nity,usually he classroombut sometimesbeyond.In allcases heindividualsnvolvedwere concernedwiththeirowngrowth. hopetoshow,however,hattheirgrowthcame at the expenseof others.Inthe 1970sand1980sIincludeda lot ofop-portunitiesfor drama n my high school Englishclassroom. shared he belief of Dixon hat"dramaiscentral o Englishworkatevery evel.... it is themost direct representationof life. . . . 'Drama'meansdoing,acting hingsout rather hanworkingontheminabstract nd nprivate.Whenpossible tis the truest ormof learning,oritputsknowledgeand understanding o their test in action"(43).Dramawas related o otherwaysof learningn myEnglishclass.AsDixonsays:

Just swetake panoverallmeaningrom playby nternalizingach f thecharactersndeelingthesum ftheir elationships,o nclass he ndi-vidualakes p romhediscussionfexperience0 JULY 2002


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whatwillmake ense fhisownworld. his ro-cessofinternalizingsdevelopednd xtendedywriting.owritehenstomoveromhesocialand hared orkoanopportunityorprivatendindividual ork. 44)I wholeheartedly greedwith Dixon's dealof the potentialfor drama.Overtime, however,Isawenoughexamplesof students'use of drama oknow hatmorewastakingplacethanstudentsmak-

ingsenseof theirownworlds.Astheyactedout theirdramas, hey were also actingon other students.One exampleillustrates his point well. I taughtsophomoresormanyyearsand ncluded ome kindof drama n eachunit. One groupof boysin one ofmyclasseswascharming,unny, ndverywell-liked.Theywerealso devotedfans of the misogynist ndraunchy tandupcomic AndrewDice Clay.Duringone of their dramaticperformances,heylaunchedintoaparody fClay hat ncludedmanyofhistrade-marktargets, articularlyomen.Eventhough heirperformancewastoned downfor the classroom-Clay'sappeal derives from being obscene andrepellent-the materialwassufficiently busive ndoffensive o makemost of the girls n the classun-comfortable,heirgigglesnotwithstanding.ecauseI did not know where their performancewasheaded,I did not cut itoff. But at the endI made tclearthat we hadseen the last of Clay n myclass-roomand thatanyfutureperformances eeded tobe respectfulowardhefeelingsoftheirclassmates.I have no doubt that in planningandper-formingheirmaterial,heboyswereengagedntheprocesses hatDixon describes.Theyweremakingsense of theirworldsthroughaprocessofdoing.Yetin doingso theywereexercising formofpower nthe classroomthat worked to the detriment ofothers,boththegirlswhofeltbelittledandhurtandthe boyswhoseability o formhealthyandrespect-ful relationshipswith girls mighthavebeen dam-aged.By prohibiting urtherperformancesof thistype,wasI violating heirrightto free speechandfailing to achieve "the liberation of pupils from thelimits of the teacher'svision"(48)? Guiltyascharged.Myconcern was for the waysin which theirpersonalexpression affected the relationships of the wholeclass, however.This firstexample is perhaps one where mostteachers would agree that the students were offen-sive and deserved censure, no matter how person-able and witty they might ordinarily be. Otherdemonstrations of power in the classroom are less

obviousandundoubtedlywouldraisegreaterdis-agreementover the right hingto do.Forinstance,I recentlyobserveda highschoolEnglishclassinwhich he teacherwaswhiteandmoststudentswereAfricanAmerican. heclasswasreadingSteinbeck'sOfMiceand Men.The teacheroverheardtudentssaying hattheydidn't ikethelanguage f thebook,particularly he use of the word "nigger."Theteacherasked hestudentsoexplainheirconcerns.One girlsaid that she found thelanguage o be of-fensive. nresponse,awhiteboysaid hattheywereallold enoughto handle t, andif people found itoffensive then they shouldjust deal with it. Theteacher followedby explaining hat the author sputting hose wordsin characters'mouths to givereadersanidea oftheirpersonalities. This s not apolitically orrectenvironment,"he said."It's ot apointof whether t shouldor shouldn't e used.It'snotJohnSteinbecktalking.He maybetryingoturnalighton thewaypeopleare.Thisbook s a classic.In Gonewith the Windtheyuse house N andfieldN, and hat'shewaypeople alked." he thenasked:

Doesanyone antodiscusstfurther? e're ottryingo offendou. nmymind,heperson ho'sputdownstheperson ho'susingt,not heper-sonwho's alledt.We hinkworse f thepersonwhouses hewordhanheperson ho's alledt.It showshespeaker'sgnorance.knowt'ssignifi-cant o thosewhohave een alledheword, utyou'reivingttoomuch ttention.t's goodbook nd ou houldn'tlowt outofproportion.Don'tetoneword ffectour eadingf thewhole ook.The class didnot discuss the issue further.One interpretation f theiragreement s that thestudentswerepersuaded hat one wordshouldnotaffect theirreadingof thisclassicand thattheybe-cameengagedin quiet appreciation f its virtues.Another s thattheyfelt silencedandchose not topursuethe matter urther,at leastin the forum ofthe classroom.From my positionas observer, saw

one student'sdevelopmental trajectoryendorsed-the white boy who said that the language was inof-fensive and that students who found it abusiveshould "dealwith it."Those students whose life ex-periences led them to find the language offensivehad little choice but to yield (at least in the class-room) to the norms that structured the white par-ticipants' life experiences.Later that morning I sat in the school's fac-ulty lounge and talked with some other English

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teachers. All agreed that students tended to find thelanguage of books like Of Mice and Men and Huck-leberryFinn offensive, and all said that their solutionwas to explain to students that the author himselfwas not racist,onlythe characterswere. They agreedthat students alwaysaccepted their explanation,andthey were able to move on. No doubt manyreadersof this article feel the same way;I'm often outnum-bered when I discuss this issue with teachers. Iwould like to raise the possibility,however, that dis-missing students' affective response to a novel's lan-guage valorizes some students' experiences at theexpense of others'.A third type of developmental conflict I'mfamiliar with comes through the performance ofwriting. Dartmouth participantDouglas Barnes ar-gues that "a wide definition of literature was usedthroughout the [Dartmouth] Seminar.Thus, whenpupil'sstories andpoems, though necessarilyprivateactivities,re-emerge as experience to be shared andtalked over with teachers and classmates, they be-come the literature of the classroom" (55). In thisview, a student's stories and experiences ought tocontribute to the texts that makeup the narrativeofthe class'sexperience. This belief assumes that thestories will contribute to a sense of classroom com-munity,and quite often they do. I always encourageteachers to treat students' writing seriously and re-spectfully and to make their texts important partsoftheir engagement with a unit theme.Like the other kinds of performances I havereviewed, however, student writing can create apower differential in classroom relationships. Asobering example was reported in the April, 1994,issue of the NCTE journal College English. In "FaultLines in the Contact Zone," Richard E. Miller re-ported on an incident that took place in a Californiacommunitycollege in which a studentwrote apaperfor an open-ended class assignment. The assign-ment, taken from awidely-used college compositiontextbook, asked students to write a report on someincident of group behavior. Miller describes thepaper as follows:

One[student]esponded ithanessaydetailingdrunkentriphe andsome riendsmade o "SanFagcisco"ostudy"the owestclass.., thequeersand he bums." heessay ecounts ow he stu-dents topped manonPolkStreet,nformed imthattheyweredoingasurvey ndneeded oknowifhe was"a ag."Fromhere, he narrativeollowsthe studentsntoa darkalleyway heretheydis-cover, stheyrelieve hemselvesdrunkenlygainstJULY 2002

thewall, hattheyhavebeenurinatingn a home-lessperson. nafrenzy,hestudentsbegin okickthe homelessperson, topping fter"30 econds fnon-stop lows o thebody,"twhichpoint hewritersayshe "thoughtheguywasdead." erri-fied, he studentsmakearun or heir arandeventuallyscape hecity. 392)As it turned out, the student knew that

the teacher, who was gay, would find it offensive.The student himself came from Kuwait and helda culturally-learned contempt for homosexuals.Dixon says:

Partof ourworknwrittenEnglish,hen, sto fos-terthekindoflooking nd he kindof talkandwritinghatdirectobservationfexperience e-mands.We doso,not nthe detachedsystematicwayof ascientist, utby watchingor,andevenhelpingoprovide,momentswhensuchexperi-encesareofpersonalmportanceopupils.For tis their nvolvementntheexperiencehatwilldraw hem ntowriting.51)This student'snarrativeundoubtedlyworked for himin the manner that Dixon describes. While fulfillinghis personal needs, however, the writing was quiteodious to his teacher and those with whom heshared it.

I should reiterate my profound respect forGrowth through English and the energy, initiative,and vision of those who contributed to it. It is wellworthy of its status as a landmarkpublication and,though written for a different era, holds much forthe modern day reader. The curricular disagree-ments that Dixon outlined in 1967 are not muchdifferent today than they were in his time. As thesayinggoes, the more things change-and much haschanged in terms of technology, demographics, pop-ular culture, litigation, and other areas-the morethey stay the same. One nice change is that we cannow make out-of-print books available for free onthe Internet. You can download Growth throughEnglish and other canonical publications at http://www.ncte.org/rte/Downloadable%20Books.htmndcontinue this conversation with your colleagues.Like any provocative book, Growth throughEnglish provides room for disagreement. My dis-agreement comes from the romantic notion of chil-dren that it portrays,which I feel results in a neglectof the power relationships that affect any socialgroup's dynamics. I have given a few exampleshere; others who have documented the "underlife"of classrooms include Margaret Finders, SusanHynds, Timothy Lensmire, Cynthia Lewis, and


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Cindy O'Donnell-Allen.Most teachers who aretunedinto theirstudents' nteractions anthinkofabundantexamplesfrom their classroomexperi-ences to add o thisstorehouse fillustrationsfstu-dentsusingtheirreadingandwriting o control hediscourseandvaluesof the classroom.

TheChallengeTheDartmouthparticipants,ikemanycurrented-ucators,recommendedthat the teacheryield au-thority o the students.Theassumption ehind hissuggestion s that each individual tudentwillthenhavegreater uthoritys he orshe followsapersonalmuse anddirection,without the ball-and-chainfthe teacher'spriorities.As CynthiaLewishas ob-served,however,"Whenhe teachergivesup power,powerfulstudentswill takeup the slack" 198). Iagreewithher view thatauthoritywillalways xistin classrooms,whetherimposedby the teacher ortakenup by the students. The questionthen be-comeshowto embraceastudent-centered,ersonalgrowthapproach,whileraising wareness fpowerrelationshipso thattheyare less imposing. thinkthatdoingso requires he belief thatclassroomdy-namicsarenotbenignand hatstudentsarenotnec-essarilynoble andpure in intention,as I thinkissuggestedin Growththrough English and manypublicationshat follow nits tradition.In making his observation am simplyas-suming hatkidsarehumanafterall.Ifbeinghumaninvolvesgainingsome degree of controlover theworld, henwe canexpect ssuesof control,power,andauthorityo be present n students'literacy ndrelationalpractices.neducationalwriting bout uchstudent-centeredapproaches swritingworkshops,we see nice, wholesome kids writingaboutnice,wholesometopics.Wenever ee thesenicekidsdoingthingsikewriting boutexplosives,s anicegroupofboysdidinone schoolwhereI taught,prior o usingthispersonalgrowthexperience in aparamilitary p-eration in which they blew up a good bit of personalproperty around town. Nor do we see them moresubtly reinforcingsocial class, gender, or gender hi-erarchiesthroughtheir literacypractices (e.g., using"gay" s apejorativeterm).While educationalwritersoften refer to students' using literacyto bring orderto theirworlds,they neglect to describe how one per-son'ssense of ordercan impose limitationson others.

My argument with the emphasis on individ-ual growth, then, concerns the absence of attention

to relationshipsndresponsibilitieso otherswhilepursuing a personal developmental path. Forthose whoembrace hegrowthmodelandstudent-centeredcurriculumt implies, he greatchallengeis to encourage ndividualso reconstructhe cur-riculumowardpersonal nds,while alsogrowing ssociallyresponsible itizensof a respectfulandde-mocraticsociety.WorksCitedBennett, WilliamJ. TheDe-valuingof America:TheFightfor OurCultureand Our Children.New York: um-mit Books,1992.Bloom, Allan D. TheClosing of the AmericanMind. NewYork:Simonand Schuster,1987.Dixon,John.GrowththroughEnglish:Set n thePerspectiveof the Seventies3rd ed. Yorkshire,UK:NationalAs-sociation for the Teachingof English,1975.Finders, MargaretJ.Just Girls:HiddenLiteracies and LifeinJuniorHigh. New York:TeachersCollege Press,1997.Finn, Chester E. We Must TakeCharge:Our SchoolsandOurFuture. New York:The Free Press, 1991.Hirsch, E. D. Cultural Literacy: What Every AmericanShouldKnow.Boston:HoughtonMifflin,1987.Hynds,Susan.Onthe Brink:NegotiatingLiteratureandLifewith Adolescents. New York: Teachers CollegePress, 1997.Lensmire,TimothyJ.PowerfulWriting,ResponsibleTeach-ing. New York:TeachersCollege Press,2000.Lewis,Cynthia."TheSocialDramaof LiteratureDiscussionsin a Fifth/Sixth-GradeClassroom."Research n the

Teachingof English31 (1997):163-204.Lloyd-Jones,Richard,and AndreaA. Lunsford.TheEnglishCoalitionConference: emocracyhroughLanguage.New YorkandUrbana, L:MLAandNCTE, 1989.Miller,RichardE. "Fault Lines in the ContactZone."Col-

lege English56 (1994):389-408.Ravitch,Diane, and United States Department of Educa-tion. DevelopingNationalStandards n Education.Washington,DC: US Dept. of Education,1995.Smagorinsky,Peter, and CindyO'Donnell-Allen."Idiocul-turalDiversity n SmallGroups:The Role of the Re-lational Framework in Collaborative Learning."VygotskianPerspectives n LiteracyResearch:Con-

structingMeaningthroughCollaborativeInquiry.Eds. Carol D. Lee and Peter Smagorinsky.NewYork:CambridgeUP,2000. 165-90.Stotsky,Sandra.Losing Our Language:How MulticulturalClassroomInstruction Is UnderminingOur Chil-dren'sAbility oRead,Write,andReason.NewYork:The Free Press, 1999.

PETERSMAGORINSKYeaches n theEnglisheducationpro-gramat the Universityof Georgia,Athens.

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growth through english revisited

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