Browsing by Author "Bird, Nancy Kenney"

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    The Conference on College Composition and Communication: a historical study of its continuing education and professionalization activities, 1949-1975
    Bird, Nancy Kenney (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1977)
    The purpose of this study was to investigate the development of the Conference on College Composition and Communication from 1949 through 1975 as a vehicle for the continuing professional education of its members and for the professionalization of the field of college composition teaching. A number of research questions were formulated to guide the investigation. These questions concerned (1) the circumstances under which the organization was founded, (2) its responses to educational movements and social forces, (3) its developing conception of its continuing education function, (4) its conception of and efforts toward professionalization, and (5) its relationship with its parent, the National Council of Teachers of English. The chief sources of information for this study included College Composition and Communication, the official journal of the organization; the programs for the annual conferences; correspondence, minutes, and reports housed in the headquarters of the National Council of Teachers of English in Urbana, Illinois; and a series of interviews with former officers of CCCC conducted in person, by telephone, and through the mail. In addition, some former officers lent materials from their personal files. Using the historical method, the study identified four distinct periods in the history of the organization: 1949-1954, during which the members came together to seek a new professional identity and to found a new organization; 1955-1958, which was characterized primarily by phenomenal growth in membership and expansion of activities; 1959-1967, during which CCCC conducted an inward search for new directions and emerged as a more mature and confident organization; and 1968-1975, a period in which CCCC's activities were marked particularly by a greatly increased concern for social justice. The researcher concluded that CCCC had become the major national forum for the continuing education of college composition teachers. It played a vital role in this process, primarily through its annual conferences and its quarterly journal. The format of the earliest conferences emphasized the workshop/discussion method. However, as the size of the meetings and the body of knowledge about the discipline of writing grew, conference topics evolved from general discussions of problems to the dissemination of more specialized research and theory depending on the leadership of a few persons. The journal evolved from little more than a pamphlet, printing reports of the conference sessions and a few articles on what specific colleges were doing in their freshman writing programs, to a widely recognized professional journal which has provided the major outlet for important research and theory development of many of the outstanding language scholars in the country. In addition, the organization also did much to further the professionalization of college composition teaching, particularly in the areas of developing a knowledge base for the profession, developing skills in applying that knowledge, and strengthening the control of composition teachers over the practice of their own profession. It was also observed, however, that the professionalization process might be speeded if CCCC could encourage more research in the teaching of composition, exert more control over access to the profession, and establish a code of ethics for the practice of the profession. It was further suggested that some of the actions resulting from the organization's overwhelming concern for social justice during the late 1960's and early 1970's might have weakened the effects of its other efforts to professionalize the field of college composition teaching.
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    The subjunctive mood in the writings of Emily Dickinson
    Bird, Nancy Kenney (Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, 1970)
    The subjunctive mood in the poems of Emily Dickinson was from the outset a source of confusion to editors and readers. The first editors thought that these forms, in particular the third person singular verbs which omit the s inflection, were incorrect usages. These editors often ''corrected" them by adding the missing inflection. Later, more scholarly critics recognized and labelled them as forms of the subjunctive mood. Since 1955 Thomas Johnson and some other contemporary critics have suggested that they are not true subjunctives but forms of a "universal present indicative." It is now known that the chief influences on Emily Dickinson's poetic style were from Elizabethan literature, written in a language rich in subjunctives and the other archaisms which characterize her poetry. There is little or no correspondence in the appearance of subjunctive forms in the letters and in the poems. The subjunctives were almost entirely poetic devices. The subjunctive forms in poems appear in many different syntactic and semantic contexts. Therefore, one explanation of these forms is not satisfactory, although the Johnson interpretation may apply to a few poems. In 1863 Emily Dickinson used them in an average of one in every three poems, a frequency twice as high as the average. Furthermore, that frequency built up to the year 1863 and gradually declined thereafter. She apparently chose the subjunctives deliberately and they became a characteristic of her finest work.