What Is English? is Peter Elbow's challenging and very personal picture of a profession that cannot define what it is. Written in a lively and accessible style, What Is English? contains Elbow's reflections on the 1987 English Coalition Conference and on its implications for the profession as a whole. Elbow identifies and tackles the major areas addressed by the conference:

• the question of what English means
• the place of theory in reading and writing
• the conflict between those who teach literature and those who teach writing
• the controversies surrounding the canon
• the nation's increasing preoccupation with assessment

To include the voices of others who attended the conference, the book contains interludes-short pieces between chapters-in which teachers from all levels of instruction express their feelings and describe their experiences.