By James Moffett
Curated by Jonathan M. Marine and Paul Rogers
Considered one of the landmark books in the teaching of language arts, writing, and English Education, James Moffett’s (1968) Teaching the Universe of Discourse revolutionized the teaching of English by pushing back against the skill-and-drill dogma of the mid-twentieth century. In the book, Moffett advances a deeply social and student-centered view of language learning in which learners develop through dialectic interaction with one another. In his uniquely accessible and homespun style, Moffett is able to bind the universe of discourse through what he terms the “scales of abstraction,” and in doing so argue for a more authentic form of language learning which distinguishes between symbol systems (such as logic, language, etc.) and empirical subjects (like history, chemistry, etc.). Drawing both on the cutting-edge cognitive science of the era and historically important thinkers like Piaget and Vygotksy, Moffett offers a deeply needed rationale for teaching and learning which remains a source of ongoing theoretical value for teachers of the language arts everywhere. Published in tandem with the more practically focused Student-Centered Language Arts, this book provides the theoretical underpinnings of one of the only fully formed theories of first-language learning ever devised.
Below, we provide a detailed table of contents for the 1983 second edition. We also provide access to the 1968 edition.
