ABSTRACT
This is, of course, an impossible title and an impossible assignment. To write a history of anything requires data, records that document what occurred in the past, so that an author can construct a narrative of events. Even acknowledging that histories are always interpretations, that they do not report what actually happened in the past but are simply records of what writers say happened, even this does not make it possible to write a history of writing instruction. The problem is that instruction, especially instruction in writing, remains largely invisible . . . [A]n instructor goes into a room with a group of students and closes the door. . . . Then, too, writing instruction is not limited to what happens inside classrooms.
