Preparing a Nation's Teachers: Models for English and Foreign Language Programs ed. by Phyllis Franklin, David Laurence, and Elizabeth B. Welles (review)

Condit offers an incisive critique of ultra-structuralist theory for its neglect of materiality, offering the coding of DNA as a model for future consideration of material rhetorics. The contributions to RhetoricalBodies are well-researched, accessible, and theoretically stimulating in their treatment of materiality. Many contributors attend to die intricate details oftheir studies, offering extensive analyses oftheir material subjects with pithy theoretical reflections that circulate throughout the book. However, while the individual essays comprise a coherent whole, some of them could have been much more concise. Several essays belabor the analyses, burying readers in excessive details without counterbalancing commentary—raising tacit questions about the precarious tension between matter and meaning. Even more stunning, however, is the ironic absence ofthe writers in RhetoricalBodies. There are some clues that these noteworthy scholars occupy a place in the worlds they study (especially Wendy Sharers research on the preservation ofresearch materials ), but by and large, the presence ofthe researcher is elided in these essays, giving us die sense that some ofthese rhetorical bodies are indeed haunted by ghosts. Despite its few shortcomings, RhetoricalBodieswill likely provoke readers to think, ultimately making this collection awelcomecontribution to considerhowour lives are steeped in rhetoric and die material world. % Phyllis Franklin, David Laurence, and Elizabeth B. Welles, eds. Preparing a Nations Teachers: Modelsfor English andForeign Language Programs . NY: The Modern Language Association ofAmerica, 1999. 423p. Sonja G. Hokanson Washington State University Change is always the issue. To embrace the work, worry, and ego threat which is integral to change, professors must feel that the end result is professionally and personally valuable. Having taught or studied in well over a dozen foreign language departments and English departments, I believe that the MLAs 1999 book, Preparing a Nations Teachers: Modelsfor English and Foreign Language Programs, presents an accurate view ofwhat is. I am not convinced that die glimmer ofwhat ought to be is abrightenough beacon to gain trustwhere itwill matter most: with the professors ofthose departments. However, it isworth reading in the sameway that looking in a mirror can be helpful. The book should have wide appeal to its target audience ofthose engaged in educating future teachers offoreign languages and English, whedier in colleges ofeducation or in the content area departments. 128 + ROCKY MOUN TA IN REVIEW * FALL 2001 Reviews Ostensibly, "language" professors and "literature" professors are all teaching usage and culturally approved norms ofcommunication, and doing it via the literary canon as soon as students' linguistic capabilities will tolerate it. Preparing a Nations Teachers gives lie to that assumption. First, there is not always agreement on exactly what is "approved." According to an old saying, "The British and the Americans are separated by a common language." Differences in vocabulary, intonation patterns, pragmatics, and slang, among other things, contribute to misunderstandings among speakers ofthe many dialects ofAmerican English and British English, as well as the many versions of foreign languages. There is also the same kind ofseparation between various schools of"language" instruction and "literature" instruction both in college English departments and in foreign language/literature departments. The book documents the fact that the teaching of literature continues to be more prestigious than the teaching oflanguage in both kinds ofdepartments. That view is supported no doubt at least in part by supply and demand: diere are generally many fewer literature courses available to teach than there are language courses. Most who earned a Ph.D. in English or a foreign language did so by a diorough investigation ofa subfield ofliterature. Consequently, they may wish to continue their involvement in literature by teaching it. Many will say that they consider language teaching to be basic skill-building and far beneath their level of expertise in the language. Moreover, the teaching ofsuch basic courses is not related in a direct way to the literary research most would prefer to be doing, reinforcing their view that teaching language is "service" not "privilege." This split in prestige and its consequences is well-documented in this book with an introductoryoverview ofthe school reform movement and its impact on higher education and then six case studies ofuniversity English departments followed by six case studies of university foreign language departments. While there are important differences among the departments...