What Is English?

What Is English? is Peter Elbows challenging and very personal picture of a profession that cannot define what it is. Written in a lively and accessible style, What Is English? contains Elbows reflections on the 1987 English Coalition Conference and on its implications for the profession as a whole. Elbow identifies and tackles the major areas addressed by the conference: the question of what English means the place of theory in reading and writing the conflict between those who teach literature and those who teach writing the controversies surrounding the canon the nations increasing preoccupation with assessment To include the voices of others who attended the conference, the book contains interludesshort pieces between chaptersin which teachers from all levels of instruction express their feelings and describe their experiences.