Theory a Comparison and Critique

¶ … Theory

A Comparison and Critique of Two Standard College-Level English Composition Texts: A Pedagogical Review

Two very different yet similarly structure college-level English composition texts were selected for comparison in this brief overview. The first of these, William Murdick's a Student's Guide to College Composition, contains no readings (though it is not short on brief textual examples, some excerpted from published works and others the creation of the author) but is instead a purely instructional volume. It progresses from the presentation of a basic understanding of what is meant by and required in a college composition to the development of arguments and the incorporation of additional sources, to the last half of the book which is devoted to several sections on major compositional assignment types (personal narratives, literary criticism, etc.). The author presents the information in a comprehensive yet semi-informal and familiar manner, aiming primarily at accessibility.

The second text is somewhat more established and more formal in its approach, and is also four times longer. The Longwood reader, 4th Ed. (edited by Charles Dawe and Edward Dornan) contains many examples of the different compositional devices and types discussed in the text. The progression of the book, if not the details or the scope, is similar to that of Murdick's guide; after establishing the necessary components of a composition as a negotiation between reader and writer -- with the former being of ultimately greater importance -- details of specific compositional types and styles takes up the bulk of the book. The reading selections presented as examples generally come from fairly established authors, but are meant to expand the reader's knowledge and appreciation of the compositional craft.

The pedagogical and theoretical approaches of these two texts are widely divergent; though both have the same ultimate instructional goals as evidenced by their similarity in structure, the approaches that the two texts take in delivering this instruction stem from markedly different preliminary assumptions and concepts. Murdick's text was purely instructional, and could effectively be boiled down to a list of do's and don'ts -- examples were provided for clarity's sake, but true experiential learning is conspicuously lacking from his approach. The Longman text, on the other hand, not only provides an abundance of long-form examples form published literary works to supplement the instructional passages in the text, but these passages are themselves written in a more literary and formal style that at times directly and purposefully emulates the compositional lessons being discussed. This approach is both more inclusive and more demanding of the reader, and explicitly tries to make the reading experience mirror that of writing inasmuch as possible.