Introduction

Arthur Noble Applebee was a major scholar in English language and literacy for more than 40 years. This chapter discusses the aspects of his life as well as his work. While at Harvard and the Child Development Laboratory, Arthur read broadly in the areas of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology as well as education, and he developed a special interest in teaching and learning from a framework anchored in language and thought in social settings. Arthur's first book, Tradition and Reform, began as a high school English assignment that "got out of hand". Arthur's research on literature in the classroom was extraordinarily productive, but there remained a gaping hole in comparable research on the larger curriculum. Although no book or any other published writing by Arthur came from it, his last body of work involved a collaborative effort spearheaded by Charles Bazerman and called the Lifespan Writing Project.