Progressive education and its influence on writing instruction

This dissertation revitalizes study of the progressive education movement, a movement beginning in the early twentieth century and largely inspired by John Dewey, and explores how this movement relates to current writing instruction pedagogy and theory in expressivist and civic rhetoric. I begin with a historical analysis of progressivism and examine how writing and rhetorical practices responded within the cultural context of industrialization and progressive reform efforts. My work, which also emphasizes Dewey's role in the evolution of current writing instruction, traces expressivist rhetoric, in the form of personal writing, and civic rhetoric, in the form of service-learning, from the turn of the twentieth century to the present, creating a historical foundation that allows me to reposition these rhetorics as "reform rhetorics" or "reform pedagogics." Much as the progressive movement was a response to cultural conditions, similarly, current pedagogical practices reflect reform interests, too, demonstrating rhetoric's response to contemporary social issues, as well as the attempt to redress these problems through pedagogical methods such as those that reconnect the academy to the community, value meaningful coursework, and reinvigorate democratic participation and active citizenship. My work also theorizes about what contemporary writing instructors should learn from the progressives' work.