Penelope J. Pether, American University, Washington College of Law “Talkin’ ‘bout the Quiet Revolution: Critical theory and its praxis in the first year classroom”. This presentation will combine a discussion of pedagogical theory and innovation with a short teaching demonstration. It draws on five distinct bodies of theoretical work: Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of the professions, in particular his work on cultural and intellectual capital and the habitus. Peter Goodrich’s legal rhetoric. The theories of legal pedagogy that have radically altered the teaching and learning of law in Australia. My own work (with Dean Bell) on legal writing pedagogy. It reflects my own experience in using theory to address structural (institutional and disciplinary) problems in student learning in law, particularly those that bedevil the teaching of first year courses on U.S. law schools. It is also comparativist, drawing on the perspectives provided by my work in Australian law schools during the period of radical change in legal pedagogy often called “the Quiet Revolution”, after LeBrun and Johnston’s book, subtitled Improving Student Learning in Law. I will focus on three projects of curricular and pedagogical innovation that I have been involved in. The first of these, at the University of Sydney, involved designing and teaching (with Isabel Karpin) a constitutional law course that integrated theory, doctrine and skills training. Rather than skills training “dumbing down” the course content or exacting too high a price in terms of sacrificing coverage, the course produced students who were much more sophisticated constitutional thinkers than those who emerged from the lecture-style course I had taught previously. It also solved the problem of persistent poor student evaluations of constitutional law courses at Sydney. The second project is my current work at Washington College of Law, developing a writing across the curriculum program designed both to improve student learning in law and to equip students to be sophisticated and critical members of the legal discourse community. The third project is one I am working in at WCL with a group of colleagues who, like me, teach required first year courses. Now in its second year, this project involves integrating the traditional first year core courses, and the introduction of legal theory, legal ethics, and legal skills training into that curriculum. It also uses a range of pedagogical techniques and strategies for improving student learning in law. I joined the project in its second year, when I became a member of the WCL faculty: theories of legal rhetoric and legal discourse and interdisciplinary work from the law, language and literature canon have now been added to what and how we teach.