ENGL 491: Composition Theory and Practice - Archival research

"As an open access companion resource to the Writing Spaces textbook series, the Activities & Assignments Archive offers pedagogical resources grounded in current practice and scholarship, organized by topic. Each document presents a pedagogical activity or assignment, curated by teacher-scholars for writing students, and reviewed by the Writing Spaces editorial team."

"The Highlander Folk School Digital Collection includes selected items from the Tennessee State Library and Archives’ holdings that relate to and tell the story of the Highlander Folk School. The majority show the inner workings of the school and include workshops, educational programs, reports, publications, flyers, booklets, and speeches."

"The Rhetoric and Composition Sound Archives is a national organization dedicated to the collection, production, and preservation of audio, visual, and print interviews that document the history of rhetoric and composition studies."

"The First-Year Composition Archive serves as a resource for scholars and teachers who seek to learn more about trends in first-year writing, the history of the discipline, teaching resources, pedagogical developments, and much more. To extend the research mission of this archive, we hope to receive syllabi, assignments, and course materials from your earliest years in the profession to your current courses."

A digital collection of non-fiction writing by currently incarcerated individuals in the United States. It includes over 1600 works.

Includes a vast array of information in support of teaching writing across the disciplines. Of particular interest for you is CompPile, a searchable inventory of published research related to post-secondary composition and rhetoric from 1939 to the present. Possibly useful if you plan to analyze publications about composition and rhetoric as primary sources.

"Crow brings together researchers at Purdue, Arizona, Michigan State, and other universities to create a web-based archive for research and professional development in applied linguistics and rhetoric & composition."

These archives contain official records, correspondence, publications, photographs, and journals of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). Click on the tab/link at the top that says "Archives Holdings" to access information on the contents of the archive or perform a search.

Accessible via the University of New Hampshire's library catalog, this is an excellent place to find books on composition and rhetoric dating back to the early 1800s. Many of the books published before 1924 can be found full text on HathiTrust or Google Books. Others might be obtained through inter-library loan.

This collection of papers pertains to the career of James Berlin, Professor of English at Purdue University. He was a major figure in the development of cultural studies pedagogy in rhetoric and composition. Materials of potential include his teaching materials (1980-1994), research materials (1884-1993), and correspondence (1979-1992).

The DPLA includes archival material and rare publications digitized by archives and libraries across the US to increase access. For your assignment use keywords like composition, writing, rhetoric, grammar, or syllabi and select one of the subjects on the left-hand side of the results list to focus your results.

Use NARA's catalog to search millions of archival items. Click on "Available Online" or "Archival Descriptions with Digital Objects" to focus on items that are available for online viewing and downloading. Use "teaching English" to get results on teaching English in other countries or "Indian schools" for results on that topic.

A collection of digitized books in the public domain (mostly pre-1924). For your assignment try keywords like composition, rhetoric, syllabi, writing, or grammar then select the subject Education on the left-hand side of the results list.

Many books published prior to 1924 are available full text through Google Books because of partnerships between Google and major libraries around the world. Books published after 1924 are often available only for limited keyword searching because of copyright laws.

Online access to materials held by the Library of Congress. You may also see much of this material in the Digital Public Library of American (DPLA).