Here is a short list of recommended readings on pedagogy, curricular renewal, and related topics. All are either available through the WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY or can be bought at Amazon.com, as indicated in this table. Note: since WebCat Library searches are timed, the links below under "Lib" are not direct, but lead you to the Wesleyan University Library home page, from which you can search under "Library Catalog."

Compiled by Sarah Wilkes, Summer Research Assistant, and William Witt, Assistant to the Director of Curricular Renewal.

Author	Title	Pub. info	Summary	Lib	Azn
Anderson, Charles W.	Prescribing the Life of the Mind: An Essay on the Purpose of the University, the Aims of Liberal Education, the Competence of Citizens, and the Cultivation of Practical Reason	University of Wisconsin Press, 1993	Argues that the main point of education should not be criticism, but the teaching of students to correct their performance according to a discipline. In order to do this, we begin by explaining the practice, and show why it is presumed best. The student learns first how to do the thing, then how to do it well, then how to critique the performance of others, then, about standards and methods, and accepted ideas of what is worthy or not, and why or why not, and finally how to critique his or her own practice.	X	X
Applebee, Arthur	Curriculum as Conversation: Transforming Traditions of Teaching and Learning	University of Chicago, 1996	Applebee argues that traditions provide the context out of which we construct realities as we know and perceive them, and that the curriculum must be reconstrued to honor such traditions by focusing on knowledge-in-action rather than knowledge-out-of-context.	X	X
Bloom, Allen	The Closing of the American Mind: How Higher Education Has Failed Demcracy and Impoverished the Souls of Today's Students	Simon and Schuster,1987	The seminal conservative tract on the allegedly deteriorating state of University education. Important in understanding the current debate about core curricula and multiculturalism.		X
Casement, William	The Great Canon Controversy: The Battle of the Books in Higher Education	Transaction Publishers, 1996	Examines past and present controversies about the canon. Argues that the canon deals with many issues besides race, gender, or equality, and focusing on these issues alone as the criteria to determine worthiness overly narrows the conversation.	X	X
Coogan, David	Electronic Writing Centers	Ablex Pub., 1999	Analyzes the changes in student-tutor relations in the computer age.	X	X
Damrosch, David	We Scholars: Changing the Culture of the University	Harvard University Press, 1995	Examines the problems of specialization, disciplinary territorialism, isolationism, and poverty of general discussion in academia.	X	X
Graff, Gerald	Beyond the Culture Wars: How Teaching the Conflicts Can Revitalize American Education	W. W. Norton & Co., 1992	Proposes to take issues such as the multiculturalism/literary canon debate head on in the classroom	X	X
Graff, Gerald	Professing Literature: An Institutional History	University of Chicago, 1987		X	X
Karabell, Zachary	What's College For? The Struggle to Define American Higher Education	Basic Books, 1998	Argues that the real conflict in academia is not between traditionalists and multiculturalists, but between ivory tower academics and working class students, who value education primarily as a means of getting a job.	X	X
Katsiaficas, George, et.al.	The Promise of Multiculturalism: Education and Autonomy in the 21st Century	Routledge, 1998	Includes an interview with Henry Louis Gates, essays on Afrocentrism, neoconservative views, and other concerns relating to multiculturalism in schools.	X	X
Keating, Anne B.	The Wired Professor: A Guide to Incorporating the WWW in College Instruction	NYU Press, 1999	Includes a history of the internet and its uses in education, web page samples, and basic HTML instruction.	X	X
Massaro, Toni Marie	Constitutional Literacy : A Core Curriculum for a Multicultural Nation	Duke University Press, 1993	Addresses educational reform from the perspective of a law professor, and focuses specifically on the "art of the possible" within the limits of constitutional law.	X	X
Miller, Richard F.	As If Learning Mattered: Reforming Higher Education	Cornell University Press, 1998	Primary concern is with the university as a bureaucracy with an inherent resistance to structural change. Argues that successful limited reform depends on the recognition of necessary mutual interdependence and cooperation between scholar and bureaucrat.	X	X
Nussbaum, Martha C.	Cultivating Humanity : A Classical Defense of Reform in Liberal Education	Harvard University Press, 1997	Discusses current issues in American Liberal Arts education and suggests an evenhanded approach to dealing with curricular change.	X	X
Oakley, Francis	Community of Learning; The American College & the Liberal Arts Tradition	Oxford University Press, 1992	Examines the history of liberal arts education and discusses the current conflicts. Argues that conflict has always characterized education Teaching the great books often does not draw on teachers' greatest expertise, leading to a superficial, amateur, and ahistorical consideration of the texts.	X	X
Pelikan, Jaroslav	The Idea of the University: A Reexamination	Yale University Press, 1992	Reexamines Newman's The Idea of the University, arguing that Newman's ideas both illumine and differ from current problems facing higher education.	X	X
Rosovsky, Henry	The University: An Owner's Manual	W. W. Norton & Co., 1991	Reflects on the author's eleven years as Dean of Faculty of Arts & Sciences at Harvard University to talk about how colleges and univesities are run, and the challenges they face.	X	X
Wilson, Robert C., et. al.	College Professors and Their Impact on Students	Wiley & Sons, 1975		X

 
For articles, journals, and other online resources, see Curricular Renewal's Links Page.

 

Last updated, February 4, 2000 by William Witt.