Priscilla Tyler (October 23, 1908) was an American educator and scholar of

composition Composition or Compositions may refer to: Arts and literature *Composition (dance), practice and teaching of choreography *Composition (language), in literature and rhetoric, producing a work in spoken tradition and written discourse, to include v ...

and

world literature World literature is used to refer to the total of the world's national literature and the circulation of works into the wider world beyond their country of origin. In the past, it primarily referred to the masterpieces of Western European lit ...

. She served as the first female chair of the

Conference on College Composition and Communication The Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC, often referred to as "Four Cs") is a national professional association of college and university writing instructors in the United States. Formed in 1949 as an organization within t ...

and as vice president of the

National Council of Teachers of English The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) is a United States professional organization dedicated to "improving the teaching and learning of English and the language arts at all levels of education. Since 1911, NCTE has provided a forum ...

in 1963.

Biography

Tyler was born in

Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

to Alice Lorraine Campbell and Ralph Sargent Tyler. She received her bachelor's in Latin and Greek from

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

in 1932. She went on to earn her master's degree in education from

Case Western Reserve University Case Western Reserve University (CWRU) is a private research university in Cleveland, Ohio. Case Western Reserve was established in 1967, when Western Reserve University, founded in 1826 and named for its location in the Connecticut Western Reser ...

in 1934. After completing her studies, she briefly worked as a parole officer and case worker at the Cleveland School for Girls, after which she worked in public schools as an English, Latin, and French teacher. She returned to Case Western Reserve University to obtain her doctorate in English, which she completed in 1953. She achieved the rank of assistant professor at Flora Stone Mather College, serving as assistant dean from 1957 to 1959. Tyler went on to be an assistant professor of English Education and department chair at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

. Tyler's 1961 course on composing processes inspired

Janet Emig Janet Emig (born October 12, 1928 in Cincinnati, Ohio) was an American composition scholar. She is known for her groundbreaking 1971 study ''The Composing Process of Twelfth Graders'' (''National Council of Teachers of English Research Report No. ...

to complete her important work on the

writing process A writing process describes a sequence of physical and mental actions that people take as they produce any kind of text. These actions nearly universally involve tools for physical or digital inscription: e.g., chisels, pencils, brushes, chalk, di ...

. Tyler did not have much status in the department. A year later, Tyler's contract was not renewed and she left Harvard. After her time at Harvard, Tyler chaired the

in 1963 and also served as vice president of the

. The 1963 CCC Conference "Toward a New Rhetoric" included influential papers by

Wayne C. Booth Wayne Clayson Booth (February 22, 1921, in American Fork, Utah – October 10, 2005, in Chicago, Illinois) was an American literary critic. He was the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in English Language & Literature and ...

Josephine Miles Josephine Louise Miles (June 11, 1911 – May 12, 1985) was an American poet and literary critic; the first woman tenured in the English department at the University of California, Berkeley. She wrote over a dozen books of poetry and several wor ...

, Francis Christensen, and Edward P.J. Corbett. The conference also noted that the field of composition studies was still very heterogeneous at this point, representing a conglomerate of teachers of linguistics, literature, and writing. Tyler later moved to the

University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

, where she also served as director of freshman rhetoric from 1966 to 1967. She went on to teach at many different universities. As of 1974, Tyler was included in the ''Dictionary of International Biography, Leaders in Education, Two Thousand Women of Achievement, Who's Who of American Women'', and ''The World Who's Who of Women''. She was also a promoter of non-Western humanities.

Works

* "The Status of the Profession." ''College Composition and Communication'' 12.2 (1961), pp. 79–83. https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/355441 * ''Writers the Other Side of the Horizon: A Guide to Developing Literatures of the World''. NCTE, 1964. * ''World's Literature Written in English: Presented at the Conference on Black Literature: It's Value in the Curriculum''. 1969. * "Non-Western Humanities in the Americas: A Definition." ''Educational Horizons'' 53.1 (1974), 4–14.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tyler, Priscilla 1908 births Academics from Cleveland Radcliffe College alumni Case Western Reserve University alumni Year of death missing