CCR 691 Annotation: Horner, Bruce and John Trimbur. “English Only and U.S. College Composition.”

Horner, Bruce and John Trimbur. “English Only and U.S. College Composition.” College Composition and Communication 53.4 (2002): 594-630.
Summary:
Bruce Horner and John Trimbur trace the pedagogical and cultural developments that have led to the conception of English writing in the United States as a unidirectional and monolingual acquisition of literate competence. While these assumptions have been motivated by the modernist ideology of "one language/one nation," the authors envision that postmodern globalization may require us to develop in our students a multilingual and polyliterate orientation to writing. They outline the shifts in curriculum, policy, and research that will promote such a broadened pedagogical orientation in the future.”

Some striking quotes:

“We argue that a tacit language policy of unidirectional English monolingualism has shaped the historical formation of U.S. writing instruction and continues to influence its theory and practice in shadowy, largely unexamined ways” (594-5)
“As we have argued, this tacit language policy weighs heavily on our work studying and teaching writing. This largely unexamined language policy has made it difficult to see that U.S. college composition, from its
formation to the present day, operates for the most part within national borders…The task…is to develop an internationalist perspective capable of understanding the study and teaching of written English in relation to other languages and to the dynamics of globalization”(623-4).