The New English

Traditional English curriculums are giving way to new English programs built on the foundations of research and scholarship. The "new" English, being developed by the Project English Centers throughout the country, attempts to utilize the characteristic structure of the subject to plan sequential and spiral curriculums replacing outdated techniques and repetitous planning. To improve the literature curriculums, the Centers are concentrating on complete masterpieces, rather than on selections from anthologies, and are emphasizing the literary work itself, close reading, intensive study of the underlying structure of the work, and supplementary wide personal reading--all within a sequential, spiral curriculum which employs the inductive approach. Language programs are being developed to incorporate generative grammar and to provide sequential units on language history, dictionaries, dialects, phonology, semantics, and syntax. For composition programs, the Centers are designing sequential approches to such important aspects of the writing process as ideas, form, diction, style, and mechanics. (LH)