{"id":177,"date":"2023-04-21T14:00:54","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T14:00:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ncte\/?page_id=177"},"modified":"2023-04-27T14:45:37","modified_gmt":"2023-04-27T14:45:37","slug":"dartmouth-seminar","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/ncte\/exhibits\/dartmouth-seminar\/","title":{"rendered":"Dartmouth Seminar"},"content":{"rendered":"

“The [Dartmouth] Seminar was an intense, difficult, major experience for anyone who cares deeply about the teaching of English in the schools. Most of my basic assumptions about teaching were questioned in one way or another, and, at the very least, I think I (and others) emerged with new perspectives.”
\nJames Squire in memorandum to Executive Committee (1966)<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“What is English?” From August 20 to September 15 in 1966, more than fifty teachers from Britain, Canada, and the United States convened to answer this question and many more on the fundamentals of English at the Anglo-American Seminar on the Teaching of English, more commonly known as the Dartmouth Seminar. Sponsoring the seminar with the National Association for the Teaching of English (NATE) and the Modern Language Association (MLA), NCTE had many of its members participate in the discussion, including Executive Director James Squire. The purpose of the seminar was not only to define the basics of English but to also share teaching strategies in the hopes of devising new ideas to change English curriculums for the better.<\/p>\n

Indeed, it was found that a wide gap existed between British and American schools of thought regarding the English curriculum. In “A Long Way Together: A Personal View of NCTE’s First Sixty-Seven Years,” J.N. Hook described the conflict between the two: “In many British schools, the Americans found, no written curriculum existed, or at best, a list of literary works to be read sometime during the year; the sometimes massive curriculum volumes of some American schools appalled the British, who preferred spontaneity” (1979, p. 220). Despite these differences, teachers at the Conference were able to reach agreements on some key issues, including the ultimate goal of English teaching, which was determined to be for the personal growth of each student (p. 221).<\/p>\n

After the seminar, books and journal articles were published based on what was discussed at Dartmouth, including\u00a0Growth Through English<\/em>, by John Dixon, and the series, the\u00a0Dartmouth Seminar Papers<\/em>. The opinion of whether the seminar had a lasting influence on the English curriculum varies among English scholars, according to Joseph Harris. In his article “After Dartmouth: Growth and Conflict in English” published in\u00a0College English<\/em>, Harris summarized how English teachers with a positive perspective regarded the seminar: “Dartmouth has symbolized a kind of Copernican shift from a view of English as something one learns about to a sense of it as something one does” (1991, p. 631).<\/p>\n

Harris argued that in reality, however, “the Dartmouth ideas seem to have failed to have much practical effect on what actually goes on in many English classrooms. Rather, the day-to-day work of most teachers, in both America and Britain, from preschool to the university, seems to have continued on after Dartmouth much as it had before \u2014 marching lockstep to the demands of fixed school curriculums, standardized tests, and calls for improved skills and increased cultural unity.” That was not to say that Dartmouth did not have any effect. Dartmouth “continue[s] to shape the kinds of talk about teaching that go[es] on at conferences and in journals,” Harris wrote (p. 632). To learn more about the Dartmouth Seminar and its origin, organization and influence, take a look at the featured topics below:<\/p>\n