Stony Brook University - SUNY Digital Repository

Again, if I took that long, hard look in the mirror, the answer
would be … No.
The next question I must ask myself then, is: what
happened? Why did I not accomplish what I had wanted to
accomplish with those freshman writing courses at the University
of Delaware, in terms of that dialectic and everything therein?
Where did the problem lie exactly? Was the problem with the
philosophy, whether mine or where it originated with the
theories of Dewey or Perry or Elbow, or was the problem with me
– my teaching practice? In the end, the problem was me. But
what exactly was the problem - with me? With my teaching
practice? With the translation of my philosophy of writing and
the teaching of writing? In order to find some answers to these
questions, I will undertake a small survey of the results and
conclusions of other compositionists who have tried to do
similar things with their writing courses and their students
within them – and with greater success than I’d had at realizing
those philosophies of Elbow and Perry and Dewey. What had they
done that I hadn’t? And what had I done that they hadn’t?
While this survey is a little difficult because there is
some overlapping, I would start with those compositionists whose
theories and research are rooted in the work of John Dewey for
the simple sake of chronology. Regardless, two names from the
field are most prominent here: Donald Jones and Stephen
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