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Gary Tate Annotated Bibliography Publications

Publications

A Guide to Composition Pedagogies. (with Amy Rupiper and Kurt Schick). Oxford, 2001.

This text focuses on the current significant pedagogies of writing: process, expressive, rhetorical, collaborative, feminist, critical, cultural studies, community service, writing center, and writing across the curriculum, basic writing, and technology and teaching writing. The editors have selected twelve essays authored by veteran educators who also include their own personal views on the complexities of teaching writing today. A large bibliography is provided for additional study and inquiry as well as for classroom applications. As the field and student population continues to expand, this collection represents a multitude of rich and diverse theories in composition and offers introductory information for the novice composition teacher and student. Authors include: D. George, E. H. Hobson, R. M. Howard, S. C. Jarratt, L. Julier, S.McLeod, C. Moran, D. Mutnick, L. Tobin, and J. Trimbur. This text is a priceless tool for anyone interested in composition studies. Lad Tobin asserts (preface) that this text is intended for the “teacher/scholar” as an avenue to “lifelong process of open-minded, critical, passionate inquiry” in the field of composition.

These texts are definitive composition references because of the plethora of teaching approaches. In fact, the editors (Tate and Corbett) mention in the preface of every edition that since Teaching Freshman Composition (1967) and Teaching High School Composition (1970) were published, it has been difficult to select essays for publication. One can trace the rise in status of composition a field by reading the prefaces of each edition. Now in its amazing fourth edition, Sourcebook continues the tradition of providing valuable scholarly essays from a variety of experts in the field, i.e. E. Corbett, P. Elbow, J. Berlin, L. Ede, D. Murray, M. Lu and Andrea Lunsford. They offer different perspectives on different areas of the teaching process. Beginning with the first edition (1981), the thirty-two essays concentrate on aiding the new composition teacher in obtaining “ways to understand themselves, their students, and the course”, general, theory, and practice. The second edition (1988) of thirty-four articles covers ten sections: our history, some overviews, writing and learning, the composing process, audience, style, teaching, responding to writing, basic writing, and questioning some traditions. With the third edition, the editors decided to focus on purely pedagogical articles, but these were in limited supply. Thus fifteen of the second edition essays are included in the third edition plus twenty-two new essays, making it thirty-seven pieces total. Three new sections are included with the other ten: classrooms, assigning and responding, and computers. Finally, in the current edition (fourth) Tate includes his persuasive essay “A Place for Literature in Freshman Composition” with sections covering perspectives, teachers, students, locations, approaches, and the teaching of writing. The thirty-six articles are arranged for the adaptation of “good pedagogy” to environmental and audience specificity.

The everyday world, the public world, the academic world, and the work world-these are the Four Worlds of Writing explored in this book, providing familiar contexts that help students use the writing process to expand knowledge and effect change. This composition text teaches flexible strategies to hone writing skills. Readers learn to begin the process by asking questions about important aspects of their lives that they seek to understand and change. Writing becomes a means to build on what they know and create some form of action, such as gaining new insights, increasing commitment to an issue, taking a new position or rejecting an old one. With multiple writing examples, Four Worlds of Writing offers guidance to help its readers write more powerfully and persuasively. (Amazon.com)

This collection of essays traces the effects of social class on educators from diverse backgrounds and their pedagogy in the classroom. Tate argues that very few texts have been published on this significant topic and he included his own personal struggles with class and the Academy environment. Tate reveals through his story a realization of class inhibition after reading another text of personal narratives, Strangers in Paradise (Ryan and Sackrey 1996). After deep reflection, he was able to address issues and translate a new confidence in his teaching approach and relationships with his students. There are twenty-one narratives included in the text from pedagogues representing some facet of teaching “English”; each with its own distinctive voice. Tate asserts that the once “elitist” climate that had nearly suffocated so many in the Academy had begun to change positively over the last decades due to voices speaking and writing as well as people listening and reading. Authors include: J. Daniels, L. DeSalvo, C. Faulkner, B. Moss, P. Sullivan, and V. Villianueva.

Introduction to Composition Studies. (with Erika Lindeman). Oxford, 1991.

This text is an invaluable resource for teachers and students of nine essays that cover the history of rhetoric and composition, theory and practice, the relationship between composition and rhetoric, issues and methods, teaching writing, politics of the field, and a personal narrative account from a rhetorician. In additional, there are bibliographies provided for further readings demonstrating in Gary Tate’s words “the vitality and number of voices speaking to important issues about writing and its teaching”. Tate makes it clear in the preface that there was a binary goal in planning and publishing the book: (1.) information on the development of the field in the last thirty years and (2.) further proof that rhetoric and composition can stand on it own merit and deserves “the status of a separate discipline”. The authors include A. Lunsford, J. Gage, P. Scott, Lisa E. and C. Moran).

Teaching Composition: 10 Bibliographical Essays. TCU Press, 1976.

After comments at a CCCC Conference (1973) by Paul T. Bryant (Colorado State U.) and William F. Irmscher (Freshman English News, 1973) on the state of college composition, Gary Tate decided to concentrate on ten bibliographical essays published before 1973. This groundbreaking text covers the following topics: invention, non-fiction prose, study of style, modes of discourse, basic writing, uses of media in composition, rhetorical analysis, linguistics, dialects and composition, and composition and related fields. Many of the authors, well known today in rhetoric and composition, are considered pioneers in the field i.e., E. Corbett, R. Young, M. Shaughnessy, and F. D’Angelo. Tate emphasizes that this text is meant to persuade educators that composition is a legitimate academic field that “does supports a body of knowledge and serious study” (Richard Lloyd-Jones). He further asserts that the essay structure permitted the authors more freedom to communicate their messages.

From Discovery to Style: A Reader: Winthrop Publishers, 1973. “A reader for the first-year course. Winthrop folded soon after publication”. (G.Tate)

Teaching High School Composition. (with Edward P.J. Corbett). Oxford UP, 1970.

This text contains thirty-four diverse articles and two bibliographies dedicated to the theory and practice of writing pedagogies including an essay written by Gary Tate, “The Open Mind: Linguistics and the Writer”. Tate comments on the confusion the linguistics movement caused in the teaching of writing (1960′s) including transformational grammar, tagmemics, stratificational grammar, and other new initiatives that caused English teachers to move to rhetoric, “classical and new”. Tate differentiates grammar study from writing in that the former is a “process of analysis” and the later is a “process of synthesis”. He argues that selected elements of linguistics have a place in composition studies because students need to release their imbedded fears of the language. Then writing will be viewed as an outlet instead of a prison of misconceptions and struggles. Thus the student experiences “openness and freedom” to experiment instead of feeling dumb or inferior. Tate also discusses the ever-changing lexicon as transitional and not fixed by a set of rules that must be followed forever. Students should be informed of the difference between “competence and performance” which is a “transformationalist concept”. Tate stresses that individuality and uniqueness should be encouraged in the writing classroom with open discussions of the language and its uses. Before the students begin to write, a brief linguistics study can prepare them mentally for the writing; although rhetoric, literature, and other resources must be accessed as well for effective improvement. In essence, the English language should not be viewed as the enemy within and teachers must be willing to guide the students to this understanding to receive quality writing.

Teaching Freshman Composition. (with Edward P.J. Corbett). Oxford UP, 1967.

“This was, I believe, the first collection of readings for graduate students interested in rhetoric and composition.” (G. Tate)

A collection of essayist focused on linguistics.

A collection of guest lectures given during the first year of NDEA Institutes for the Advanced Study of English.