LA PERCUSIÓN: MEMBRANÓFONOS, IDIÓFONOS.

One of the ways Harvard had the potential to influence the teaching of composition was by having its graduates teach composition across the country. For example, as mentioned

previously, Wozniak argues that one of the ways that Adams Sherman Hill influential was through “the disciples he inspired to spread his gospel in applied composition” (103), with the disciples being Hill’s many students who went on to become composition teachers (90).

Wozniak makes similar arguments about students of Wendell’s who he describes as “spreading the Harvard gospel in composition and rhetoric” (142). He cites George Rice Carpenter, who

taught at Columbia and published textbooks and articles as well as Hammond Lamont, a Harvard graduate who taught at Brown (142-143). Perhaps his most interesting example is James W. Tupper, who from 1902 to 1904, taught English A at Harvard and then taught at Lafayette. Wozniak notes that “His [Tupper’s] appointment to Lafayette specifically enjoined that he ‘be authorized to put into practice the methods of instruction in Freshman composition, now in vogue at Harvard University’” (144). This example illustrates not only that some colleges wanted to adopt Harvard’s approach to composition; they also wanted to hire people who had first-hand experience with it.

Though not a student of Hill’s or Wendell’s, Hodges was a student of Hill and Wendell’s contemporaries who shared the CTR-based pedagogy, and in his own classrooms, Hodges used what he learned from them. He taught composition in a few schools, but more importantly, he wrote what some argue is the best-selling textbook of all time. Hodges graduated from Harvard in 1918 and joined the faculty at the University of Tennessee Knoxville (UTK) in 1920.

According to Kenneth Curry, who wrote a history of UTK’s English department, English at Tennessee: 1794-1988, “to speak of Dr. John C. Hodges is to speak of the history and

development of the Department for approximately forty years” (85). Curry praises Hodges for how he improved the department in many ways: “He was one of the most tactful persons I have ever known” (87); He “quickly made himself useful by taking over the moribund program of Freshman English” (85); and “His greatest skill lay in his recruitment of an able staff so that in some ways the Department represented for twenty-five years after his retirement his lengthened

shadow17” (87). One such recruit was his friend, Alwin Thaler, a classmate from Harvard (Curry

17 _{This means that Hodges’ influence was felt in the department as late as 1987, a date that makes it possible to}

imagine how these ideas might still be popular. To be more specific, the Department in which I work has had two Chairs who were graduates of UTK, both of whom graduated before 1987, which means they likely saw the

86). Thaler is an important hire for UTK because Curry argues that “the two [Hodges & Thaler] can be said to have provided the direction and leadership of the Department for the next several decades” (86). I mention both here as another way of connecting Harvard’s influence on what would happen at UTK; in other words, two Harvard graduates (though Hodges is most important here) from the CTR period at Harvard would influence the English department at UTK.

Curry offers Hodges high praise for his work with the Freshman English program. Curry describes Hodges’ pedagogical changes to the program in this way:

He designed a system of not only the writing of papers but also of seeing that papers were corrected and revised. The students kept their papers in a folder, and at the end of the quarter turned in their folders with the corrected papers.

Instructors in the course were expected to have two conferences with each student and go over the papers with the student to determine their weaknesses and

recommend ways of improving the compositions. The program was as demanding of the instructors as of the students. At one time, changed later, two themes per week were written: one in class; another out of class. (85)

This description sounds a good bit like Wozniak’s description of the original Freshman English at Harvard. Harvard’s students also used theme paper, wrote numerous themes, and maybe most important, the Harvard course also focused on the correction of themes. He says that “The aim of the Harvard instructors was to drill into freshman ‘the habitual use of correct and intelligent English’” (125). Thus, Hodges’ system at UTK is important because it shows some of the ways Harvard’s system influenced Hodges’ system at UTK. It is perhaps more important because it lays the foundation for the system Hodges would use to create the HHH.

influence of Hodges. Both were adopters and advocates of the HHH. To show how long this influence can last, one of these Chairs retired only two years ago.

In addition to creating guidelines for how student papers would be handled, Hodges also worked with faculty to make sure they were all on the same page in their teaching of

composition. Curry describes Hodges’ approach to working with faculty as follows:

In order to provide guidance to the changing corps of instructors and teaching fellows, Hodges conducted weekly staff meetings. In those leisurely days no English classes were hald [sic] at 11:00 a.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays so that Tuesdays were pre-empted for these staff meetings. In those days attendance was expected and since the staff was relatively small, any absence was conspicuous. Because the instructors and fellows came from a large cross-section of the nation, it seemed reasonable that the marking of the papers by this diverse group would exhibit a fair picture of what freshman instructors everywhere considered important. (85-86)

Though Curry never clearly says so, the implication here (and elsewhere in Curry’s book) is that these staff meetings were what we might now call norming sessions. Curry does say that Hodges held these meetings to “provide guidance to the changing corps of instructors,” which suggests that Hodges is telling instructors how to mark papers, but his later comment that there would be differences in what they marked given their varied backgrounds seems to contradict his earlier point. Thus, the purpose of these meetings is not entirely clear. If they were norming sessions, however, these sessions are likely the result of Harvard’s influence. Wozniak notes that Harvard attempted to have instructors mark papers objectively, and one of the ways this was done was through weekly instructors’ meetings where “an attempt was made to keep the standard of grades uniform for the whole class” (Wozniak 128).