The Ends of Literacy Education: Evangelical Protestantism and the Nineteenth-Century Origins of Contemporary Writing Instruction
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THE ENDS OF LITERACY EDUCATION: EVANGELICAL PROTESTANTISM AND THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY WRITING INSTRUCTION by Brenda Marguerite Glascott B.A., Binghamton University, 1996 M.A., University of Pittsburgh, 2001 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2007 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Brenda M. Glascott It was defended on June 7, 2007 and approved by Stephen L. Carr, Associate Professor, Department of English Nancy Glazener, Associate Professor, Department of English Donna Strickland, Assistant Professor, Department of English Dissertation Advisor: Kathryn Flannery, Professor, Department of English ii Copyright © by Brenda M. Glascott 2007 iii THE ENDS OF LITERACY EDUCATION: EVANGELICAL PROTESTANTISM AND THE NINETEENTH-CENTURY ORIGINS OF CONTEMPORARY WRITING INSTRUCTION Brenda M. Glascott, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2007 This dissertation examines stories of transformation integral to representations of nineteenth-century American evangelical literacy instruction: transformations of literacy students into Christians and transformations of literate Christians into critics of authority. In particular, I describe how nineteenth-century evangelical literacy education was represented as a powerful engine of change for the literacy student and the student’s community in novels, letter writing manuals, and tract society literature. As I read these texts, the historical representations of evangelical literacy instruction present this instruction as a two-step process of transformation in which, first, the student is transformed and, second, the student affects transformations on the people in his/her community. In unearthing these stories of transformation I am able to construct an overlooked history in which literacy and the literary intertwine with evangelical Protestantism. This history is valuable not only for what it tells us about the past, but it also sheds light on the assumptions we make today about the transformative potential of literacy education. I demonstrate, for instance, that these narratives of transformation have present-day analogues in secular, scholarly debates about transforming composition students into activists and policy-makers. In particular, I examine the metaphors and narratives composition scholars use to characterize the means by which composition courses are thought to prepare students to engage with “public” spheres. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE.................................................................................................................................... vii 1.0 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 1 2.0 EVANGELICAL LITERACY: AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY LITERATURE AND CONSTRUCTIONS OF LITERACY ............................................................................. 24 2.1 EVANGELICAL READING PRACTICES.................................................... 27 2.2 TRACT STORIES: NARRATIVES OF LITERATE LIVES AND EARLY DEATHS ............................................................................................................................. 34 2.3 BAD BOOKS, REDEMPTION, AND LITERACY AS ACTIVISM............ 46 2.4 CONCLUSION: EVANGELICAL LITERACY AND THE PUBLIC SPHERE ............................................................................................................................. 60 3.0 LITERACY EDUCATION AS CONVERSION PEDAGOGY IN MID- NINETEENTH CENTURY LITERATURE............................................................................ 63 3.1 A PEDAGOGY OF TRANSFORMATION: EVANGELICAL LITERACY INSTRUCTION.................................................................................................................. 69 3.2 THE MORAL AUTHORITY OF THE EVANGELICAL LITERACY STUDENT ........................................................................................................................... 81 3.3 EVANGELICAL LITERACY INSTRUCTION: A DIFFERENT KIND OF LIBERATORY PEDAGOGY? ......................................................................................... 98 v 4.0 MODEL LETTERS, MODEL LESSONS: LETTER-WRITING MANUALS AND VIRTUOUS CHARACTER........................................................................................... 102 4.1 MANUALS AS MODES OF LITERACY INSTRUCTION ....................... 114 4.2 MODEL LITERACY LESSONS ................................................................... 124 4.3 MODEL LESSONS: THE VIRTUE OF SUBMISSION ............................. 131 5.0 PUBLIC-ORIENTED WRITING PEDAGOGY: NARRATIVES OF TRANSFORMATION AND CITIZENSHIP......................................................................... 144 5.1 AN IMAGINARY SPHERE: MAPPING “THE PUBLIC” IN WRITING INSTRUCTION................................................................................................................ 146 5.2 CITIZEN, SLAVE, OR TECHNOCRAT? METAPHORS FOR STUDENT TRANSFORMATION IN PUBLIC-ORIENTED TECHNICAL AND PROFESSIONAL WRITING ......................................................................................... 158 NOTES....................................................................................................................................... 184 BIBLIOGRAPHY..................................................................................................................... 198 vi PREFACE The experience of writing this dissertation certainly impressed on me that no one accomplishes much of anything without the tremendous support of her community. I am very grateful to the different communities that have supported me through this project; this completed dissertation is as much theirs as it is mine. First, I need to thank my incredible committee. My chair, Kathryn Flannery, has been a true and generous guide. As such she has asked the right questions at the right time, stood back and allowed me to come to my own questions, and taught me that each intellectual project contains varied possibilities to explore. Steve Carr was one of the first professors at the University of Pittsburgh to see in me the potential to do this work. His early encouragement was essential for me to recognize my own abilities. He is an amazing reader, teacher, and friend. Nancy Glazener -- also an amazing reader with an astonishing intellect -- taught me how to be rigorous and inquisitive as a scholar. (She is also a lovely human being.) I am also grateful to Donna Strickland whose effort to bridge composition and cultural studies through her work on gender and labor has been an important model for me as I set-out to develop my own methods of inquiry. I was lucky to be part of a community of graduate students who were supportive, generous, and wacky at the appropriate times. In particular I would like to thank Tara Lockhart who has been a true comrade. I would also like to thank Manisha and Anustup Basu whose house was like a university annex, minus the stringent anti-smoking laws. Chris Warnick was vii something like my guy Friday – always there with advice, support, and the often-needed reality check. I would also like to express my gratitude to my two dissertation reading groups: Chris Warnick, Maggie Rehm, Tara Lockhart, Jean Grace, Julie Parrish, Kirsten Strayer, Christine Feldman, Kara Andersen, Molly Brown, Amy Borden, and Amanda Klein. Even though my Dad was afraid graduate school would drop me at the Home Depot for a lifetime of key making, his encouragement, as well as my mother’s, taught me to value education and the risk of pursuing what you desire. Finally, there’s no way I could have come this far without my partner, Amy Borden. These last few months, especially, she’s fed and clothed me and acted as a valuable sounding board. I can’t imagine having done this without her. viii 1.0 INTRODUCTION “’I think I am changed,’ she said to herself at last. ‘I didn’t use to like to read the Bible, and now I do very much; -- I never liked praying in old times, and now, oh, what should I do without it!— I didn’t love Jesus at all, but I am sure I do now. I don’t keep his commandments, but I do try to keep them; -- I must be changed a little.’” --Susan Warner, The Wide, Wide World, 352. “I want to promote particular values; I want to feel, with classical rhetoricians such as Isocrates and Quintilian, that I am shaping good people by my instruction.” --Patricia Bizzell, Academic Discourse and Critical Consciousness, 282 “The preparation of students in technical and professional communication for civic engagement presumes their participation in social action as citizens but also perhaps as professionals employed for their expertise in communication . .” --Carolyn Rude, “Toward an Expanded Concept of Rhetorical Delivery: The Uses of Reports in Public Policy Debates,” 271. Nineteenth-century American evangelicalism would seem a world apart from modern scholarly debates about how to teach reading and writing to college students. Yet, these two worlds share an emphasis on the transformative potential of literacy instruction which suggests that these two worlds are more closely linked than would be apparent at first blush. If we 1 recognize that “literacy instruction has always taken place with a substantive context of values” (de Castell and Luke 159), perhaps we can further recognize a genetic tracing from nineteenth- century depictions of students transformed into Christians to modern