@article{4bc420d89cc84ae998d2c188d6e13935,
title = "With “Increased Dignity and Importance{"}: Re-Historicizing Charles Roberts and the Illinois Decision of 1955",
abstract = "I revisit the so-called Illinois Decision of 1955, which eliminated basic writing from the University of Illinois Rhetoric Program and caused a chain of similar programmatic actions on other campuses nationwide. I contend that reviewing and archiving the Illinois Decision as a locally specific act with multiple actors besides WPA Charles Roberts historicizes a familiar narrative present today—namely, how WPAs address anxieties about writing in high school versus college, and how composition students and programs are beholden to ongoing institutional and extra-institutional imperatives regarding literacy and efficiency.",
keywords = "pedagogy, writing program administration, first-year writing, basic writing, archival research, labor histories",
author = "Kelly Ritter",
note = "Funding Information: I extend my thanks to Jonathan Alexander and the two anonymous reviewers at CCC who gave me valuable insight and advice toward revision of this article. I also thank the archivists both at the University of Illinois{\textquoteright}s Archives Research Center and at the University of Iowa for their patient help. I especially appreciate the help of archival librarian Denise Anderson at Iowa, who let me work with the newly archived John C. Gerber papers for the better part of three days in summer 2015. Thanks also go to Kirsten Dean, whose help in cleaning out and reorganizing the Rhetoric Closet allowed me to write this article in the first place. And, finally, thanks go to Melissa Ianetta and Peter Mortensen for reading drafts (or parts thereof), and Jack Selzer for being interested in Charles Roberts and believing that Roberts{\textquoteright}s story should continue in the pages of the journal Roberts once edited. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2018 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.",
year = "2018",
month = feb,
language = "English (US)",
volume = "69",
pages = "458--493",
journal = "College Composition and Communication",
issn = "0010-096X",
publisher = "National Council of Teachers of English",
number = "3",
}