![]() ![]() Study Group Papers focused on testing, the uses of drama or the role of myth in the classroom, linguistics, and creativity (see Seminar Packet). The format involved plenary sessions and responses, as well as working groups focused on particular aspects of English teaching: 1) What is English? 2) What is "Continuity" in English Teaching? 3) English: One Road or Many? 4) Knowledge and Proficiency in English 5) Standards and Attitudes. Dartmouth College was chosen because gathering in the US was less expensive than the UK, it had a good library and material resources, and it provided a space somewhat removed from distraction so that participants could concentrate on the task at hand: defining what English education was and what its curriculum should be (Carnegie Archives selection #4, Proposal, 11/3/65 see below for a discussion of Wayne O'Neil's objections to this remove). Even at the time though, the name was awkward, and contemporary and retrospective documents often omit the official name and refer to it as the Dartmouth Seminar or the Dartmouth Conference. John Trimbur notes that the name was indicative of a larger postwar neocolonial project of consolidating and exporting English as a commodity (144). Officially, the Seminar was called the "Anglo-American Seminar on the Teaching of English," ostensibly because it brought British and American educators together. As the primary orchestrator of this exhibit, I'll outline some of the context, tenor, tensions, and findings of the seminar as I've learned them from five years of talking to participants, combing through the primary archives, and reading secondary materials. The influence of the Dartmouth Seminar remains significant in university and K-12 English education in the US and the UK and the rest of the Anglophone world, although this influence is largely indirect. Albert Marckwardt, linguist and the President of NCTE at the time, directed the Seminar. The Carnegie Corporation of New York provided $150,000 to sponsor it. It was a rare joint effort by the U.S.-based NCTE and MLA, the newly formed U.K.-based NATE, and the Canadian CCTE. The gathering was spearheaded primarily by James Squire, Executive Secretary of the NCTE, and Albert Kitzhaber, who was involved in CCCC, Project English, and NCTE and also involved close collaboration with NATE members Boris Ford, Douglas Barnes and others. They were visited by another 20 or so consultants, who came for several days each to run workshops and lend their expertise in the teaching of English. Some were university professors others were elementary English teachers. Their expertise ranged from linguistics to literature to English education. ![]() and U.K., gathered on the Dartmouth College campus for almost four weeks to discuss what the curriculum of English should be. In late summer of 1966, almost 50 English teachers, primarily from the U.S. ![]()
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