Closing the Books on Alchemy

Abstract

In 1963 two publications appeared, one from NCTE, the other from the NEA, both summarizing the state of the art, or science, of composition research. One of them created a wave so big that even after seventeen years its ripples continue wash the shores of the English curriculum; the other, unfortunately, sank without a trace. The authors of the NCTE report, Research in Written Composition-Richard Braddock, Richard Lloyd-Jones, and Lowell Schoer-recognized that such research was not highly developed; in fact, they compared research in composition to chemical research as it emerged from the period of alchemy (p. 5). We've come a long way since then. Recent work in such areas as invention, error analysis, the process of writing, holistic scoring, and sentence combining testifies the progress we have made as researchers; the variety of program topics at CCCC demonstrates how far we have come and how much we have learned since 1963. That NCTE report, in fact, with its detailed accounts of empirical studies and scientific research methods, probably had a great deal do with bringing us out of the dark ages. Yet the biggest wave that report made had just the opposite effect: it encouraged the alchemists. The most quotable statement in all of its pages effectively turned back the clock on grammar research; it is still causing ripples: