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Maxine Hairston Annotated Bibliography Articles and Chapters

Articles

(arranged by date)

Hairston wrote this essay after fighting against a well-documented move at the University of Texas at Austin to create freshman composition classes that dealt with political writing. She warns against the recent move in composition studies towards politically charged writing classes. Although she personally supports many of the political aims (including eradicating racial and gender inequalities) of her colleagues who worked to institute such a writing program, Hairston believed that politics should be kept out of the writing classroom. She writes, “I fear that we are in real danger of being co-opted by the radical left,” which Hairston believes might infiltrate college writing classes via authoritarian methods. Teachers should use their power and authority not to influence the politics of young and relatively unsophisticated students, but to teach them literacy and writing skills while respecting their unique sociopolitical backgrounds. In this way, teachers can be “receptive” instead of “proscriptive.” Inciting controversy throughout the discipline, this article has sometimes been considered conservative during an era in which social-epistemic pedagogies were en vogue.

In the published version of Hairston’s 1985 address to the Conference of College Composition and Communication, Hairston describes how she accepted the position of Director of Composition at the University of Texas at Austin when other English professors in literary studies turned it down. Hairston’s observations about the antagonistic tensions and inequalities between (male-dominated) literary studies and (female-dominated) composition studies are presented metaphorically as a dysfunctional marriage which might be best resolved through a disciplinary divorce. Invoking feminist and psychoanalytical ideas about relationships, Hairston compares composition studies to a woman who, in an abusive marriage, should listen to her inner voice and leave the figurative household. Since respectful communication is no longer possible in her department, Hairston haltingly advocates for the creation of a separate department of rhetoric.

---. “Breaking Our Bonds and Reaffirming Our Connections.” ADE Bulletin, 81 (1985): 1–5.

In this essay, Hairston utilizes Thomas Kuhn’s concept of the paradigm-shifting that occurs when science is revolutionized by new knowledge. A similar shift has been occurring in composition studies as product pedagogies evolve into process pedagogies. In Kuhn’s model, an established field of knowledge – a discipline – will break down when unexplained anomalies occur that disprove and disrupt reigning theories. This phenomenon is beginning to occur in composition classes as teachers approach a crisis resulting from their failure to teach students to write with traditional, product-centered approaches. Following Kuhn’s model, a discipline must go through stages of change during a paradigm shift, and Hairston charts the problems and resulting changes occurring in her field. Composition teachers are additionally challenged by outside pressures, like open admissions and the entry of veterans and other nontraditional students who are less “docile” than traditional freshmen, though writing programs (unsuccessfully) try to bandage the overflow of underprepared students with ad hoc measures like writing centers. A solution is emerging in the form of process-centered pedagogies that are based on empirical research which studies how writers write successfully.

In this early publication, Hairston addresses one way to meld theory and practice in composition classrooms. She suggests that a nurturing approach to teaching rhetorical skills would be an improvement over an antagonistic, even humiliating, debate-centered classroom. Such a practice will model a more socially harmonious approach to communication in writing as well. By incorporating psychological theories of communication from Carl Rogers’ article, “Communication: Its Blocking and Its Facilitation,” Hairston outlines a method for teaching composition that emphasizes collaboration and consensus-making in student writing. She offers composition teachers and their students specific advice for constructing reader-based arguments that are free of connotative language and that establish a common ground between the writer and the reader.

Chapters

(arranged by date)

Hairston refers to the concept of the enthymeme from classical rhetorical philosophy and discusses how it can be used pedagogically in contemporary college classrooms for both speculative and practical purposes. Hairston points out that the enthymeme has been neglected in freshman composition even though it is an excellent strategy for rhetorical persuasion. Reasons for this neglect include the ideas that the enthymeme has been misunderstood and oversimplified, ignored by literary scholars who teach composition, and omitted from process-centered syllabi in favor of other writing practices. Hairston refers to the work of James McBurney and William M .A. Grimaldi as she describes some of the historical reasons the study of the enthymeme has fallen out of favor in academia. Using the three views of composing described by Lester Faigley (et al.) in the 1985 book, Assessing Writers’ Knowledge and Composing Processes, Hairston outlines why the enthymeme has been neglected, and why it might return to composition classes in the near future as a way to introduce students to the continuing value of classical rhetoric.

Using recent research from the field of composition studies, Hairston offers advice to composition teachers (especially graduate students) who are overworked and in danger of burnout or misery. Citing a lack of training, Hairston believes most composition teachers spend far too much time conferencing with students and meticulously grading student work. This does not effectively improve student writing, and it is exhausting for the teacher. To avoid being a “slave” and for the sake of a composition teacher’s self-respect as a professional, teachers must place more responsibility for improvement on their students. Additionally, by reducing their grading time, teachers will free up a significant part of their work schedules for writing-for-publication and professional development activities that result in promotion. Hairston ends this essay by recommending several tips for writing instructors, including writing fewer comments on student papers (so students will not get overly discouraged or overwhelmed), using peer-review sessions, and carefully teaching students strategies for revision.