development of narrative in the English curriculum, is the underlying thesis on which the book is
based. This thesis is the beginning of a “global rationale” for English, “the lack *of which+ has
obstructed the alignment of means and ends and obscured the unity of the field” (p211). In relation
the teaching of writing, Moffett advocates an environment in which writing is seen like speech, as a
dialogic exchange within and beyond the classroom, largely between the teacher and his or her
pupils, but also with wider communities and audiences. The alignment of writing with speech and
drama gives it significance and function, even within the simulated spaces of the classroom.
Although the answer to Moffett’s call on the teaching of writing came partly from the creation of the
National Writing Project in the USA in the early 1970s, with its emphasis on building up the
confidence and repertoire of teachers in writing, there is still a long way to go in persuading
authorities, at least in England, that developing teachers as writers is key to improving the quality of
students’ writing (see Andrews, 2008).
The relevance of Moffett to contemporary rhetoric
Moffett’s focus on discourse and rhetoric is one way of working toward a global rationale for English
as school subject (and indeed, English as a university discipline - but that’s another story). The
current interest in rhetoric, as discussed by Green (2006), for example, echoes much of what Moffett
was proposing. As noted above, Moffett is characteristically modest about the scope of his
argument; that modesty, with its eye very firmly on practice and possibilities in the classroom, is
partly what makes the propositions attractive and use-able. And yet a global rationale is needed for
the epistemological, social and pedagogical practices that constitute ‘English’, which continues to
fissure as a subject. Such a rationale is needed because a) we are literally now experiencing global
awareness under the heading ‘English’ which covers a wide range of practices and orientations, b)
‘English’ seems a misnomer for much of what goes on under its name, c) multilingualism is the norm
worldwide and d) drama, media work, multimodal perspectives all sit under the umbrella term. As
Green suggests (op.cit), neither ‘literacy’ nor ‘new literacies’ are the terms under which the range of
practices can gather. Partly this is because these terms have been asked to do too much, and been
stretched metaphorically to mean competences and capabilities, as in the terms ‘emotional literacy’,
‘computer literacy’ etc. Instead, he proposes rhetoric “appropriately reworked, as providing a new
organising principle for English teaching” (p11). That re-working means, I think, a re-working of
classical rhetoric for the present times. Such re-working would need to take into account that
making persuasive speeches in public forums is only one small part of what rhetoric might be used
for in the 21st century; and, furthermore, that the prescriptions, manuals and progymnasmata
(exercises in which genres were modelled and then imitated) of Renaissance rhetoric are no longer
appropriate.
In exploring the possibilities for rhetoric as a unifying principle or body of theory, Green discusses
Hunter (1997) who proposes a separation of rhetoric, ethics and literature in the secondary
classroom. This separation, it seems, confines rhetoric to something like a contemporary
combination of classical and renaissance rhetoric and could (I am not suggesting this about Hunter’s
work) lead to a reductive language curriculum.
The larger conception of rhetoric as the arts of discourse is one I would want to propose here, not
least because it builds on Moffett, Hunter, Green, Kress (2005) and others who see rhetoric, in