In Reformers, Teachers, Writers, Neal Lerner explores the distinction between curriculum and pedagogy in writing studies—and the ways in which failing to attend to that distinction results in the failure of educational reform.

Lerner’s mixed-methods approach—quantitative, qualitative, textual, historical, narrative, and theoretical—reflects the importance and effects of curriculum in a wide variety of settings, whether in writing centers, writing classrooms, or students’ out-of-school lives, as well as the many methodological approaches available to understand curriculum in writing studies. The richness of this approach allows for multiple considerations of the distinction and relationship between pedagogy and curriculum. Chapters are grouped into three parts: disciplinary inquiries, experiential inquiries, and empirical inquiries, exploring the presence and effect of curriculum and its relationship to pedagogy in multiple sites, both historical and contemporary, and for multiple stakeholders.

Reformers, Teachers, Writers calls out writing studies’ inattention to curriculum, which hampers efforts to enact meaningful reform and to have an impact on larger conversations about education and writing. The book will be invaluable to scholars, teachers, and administrators interested in rhetoric and composition, writing studies, and education.

Neal Lerner is professor of English and writing center director at Northeastern University. He is the author of The Idea of a Writing Laboratory (the winner of the 2011 NCTE David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English) and coauthor of Learning to Communicate in Science and Engineering (the winner of the 2012 CCCC Advancement of Knowledge Award) and The Meaningful Writing Project.