Traditional teaching of English is inextricably linked to devilish content certainty.  Just consider this exchange from a highly regarded (and used) 19th century textbook, Blair’s Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles-Lettres:

Q. On what is Metaphor founded?
A. On the resemblance which one object bears to another.  It is a comparison in an abridged form. “A Minister upholds the state, like a pillar;” is a comparison. “A Minister is the Pillar of the state;” is a metaphor.
Q. Does this figure come near to Painting?
A. Yes. Its peculiar effects is to make intellectual ideas visible to the eye, by giving them colour, substance, and sensible qualities.
Q. What is the first rule to be observed in the conduct of Metaphors?
A. They should be suited to the nature of the subject of which we treat; neither too many, nor too gay, nor too elevated for it. *

The Reverend John Marsh, who adapted the book in 1822 from a longer edition, has several other similar rules for how one should use metaphor.  He notes in a footnote, quite seriously it seems, that this first rule, “*… should be particularly attended to by young writers, who are apt to be carried away by an admiration of what is showy and florid, whether in its place or not.  A great secret in composition is to know when to be simple.”  O, how we long for the days of such content clarity and unabashed authoritative teaching!

Those days are long, long gone.  The days ahead are much closer to what Marsh’s contemporary Herman Melville tried to accomplish in Moby Dick: a genre-bending tale with irresponsible and spotty narration that seeks to flip tradition on its ear.  In these new times, content is both everything and nothing; the notion of disciplines in academia crumbles as governments build emergency scaffolding around it in the form of quantitative tests.  Disciplines–and, for our purposes, English–would be best to follow the path of the Pequod: after some lofty meandering, have the decency to sink.

There is no more content, not as we have known it.  Whereas in the past, Rev. Marsh might have rattled off the content of English with certainty, I imagine our current experiences with online literacies, video/audio production, remixes, emails, and other digital tools would have left him wordless. Here’s the twist: English has always been a technology and media studies course; only, it focused on one medium–the written word.

Above, I said that English is subsumed by tech and media studies, but in actuality, it always has been just a single specialized branch of such studies.  It was the technological innovation of the stylus, according to Walter Ong, that changed the way peoples communicated.  For Ong, writing is a technology.  The next major innovation might be the printing press, which standardized printed word and enabled individuals to mass produce it quickly.  These two technological tools privileged written media.  Of course media studies was synonymous with English class.  Literature and other written and performed derivations were all we had.  However, in the 20th century, as film, television, and the internet began challenging and co-opting written media, English teachers began to splinter.  Today, it is still writing and reading the dominates our work.

Let’s let English go.  Let’s let other media have their time as well.  We must share curricula between literature, film, music, and online texts.  Perhaps, in later studies, curricula can make room for specialized courses like 19th Century American Literature, or Youtube Film Studies.  Let’s be suspicious of other disciplines that seem steady and stately.  Let’s re-read our own narrative with Ishmael, rather than Starbuck, in mind.

Related posts:

1. 19th Century Textbooks vs. 21st Century Online Courses
2. From the Journals :: English and Inquiry?
3. New Viral Web Site, Old Way to Teach Writing