Pretty tough to understand recent composition history if you're unfamiliar with the earlier history. If you're in that boat, I recommend that you cruise some or all of the following sources--preferably before the semester starts. Think of these as prerequisites for the course:

Adams, Katherine H. A Group of Their Own: College Writing Courses and American Women Writers, 1880-1940. Albany: SUNY UP, 2001.

Atherton, Catherine. "Children, Animals, Slaves and Grammar." Pedagogy and Power: Rhetorics of Classical Learning. Ed. Yun Lee Too and Niall Livingstone. New York: Cambridge UP, 1998. 214-244.

Berlin, James A. Writing Instruction in Nineteenth-Century American Colleges. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1984.

Brereton, John C., ed. The Origins of Composition Studies in the American College, 1875-1925: A Documentary History. Pittsburgh : U Pittsburgh P, 1995.

Brody, Miriam. Manly Writing: Gender, Rhetoric, and the Rise of Composition. Southern Illinois UP, 1993.

Connors, Robert J. Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and Pedagogy. U Pittsburgh P, 1997.

Crowley, Sharon. Composition in the University: Historical and Polemical Essays. U Pittsburgh P, 1998.

Kates, Susan. Activist Rhetorics and American Higher Education: 1885-1937. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2001.

Kitzhaber, Albert R. Rhetoric in American Colleges. Dallas: Southern Methodist UP, 1990.

Miller, Thomas P. The Formation of College English: Rhetoric and Belles Lettres in the British Cultural Provinces. Pittsburgh: U Pittsburgh P, 1998.

Russell, David R. Writing in the Academic Disciplines, 1870-1990: A Curricular History. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1991.

Schultz, Lucille M. The Young Composers: Composition's Beginnings in Nineteenth-Century Schools. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 1999.

Varnum, Robin. Fencing with Words: A History of Writing Instruction at Amherst College During the Era of Theodore Baird, 1938-1966. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 1996.

http://wrt-howard.syr.edu/Syllabi/611texts.html