[Teaching_Composition] Irv, Hairston, and Citation
Doug Downs
teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
Mon, 09 Oct 2006 22:40:40 -0600
Yeah, Bill, for me it was just the apparent disjunct between all these
interpretations (pretty extensive ones, from all of us) about Hairston's
work flying back and forth and then your appeal (as I read it) to what
the text says undeniably, and that just didn't mesh for me. I read it
as sorta calling for a purer or value-freer reading than any of us can
give, thinking all the while that that was strange coming from you. But
I could also chalk it up to frustration at having a line of argument and
support characterized as straw -- I don't buy your reading of Hairston,
but as far as I can see it's a perfectly legitimate argument, and I know
many others *do* find it persuasive.
That would lead me off on a pet peeve about formal-logical fallacies
that seem only to ever get pulled out as an offensive weapon by a
defensive arguer. . . . In a world of informal logic and rhetoric, many
of them aren't nearly so clear-cut as hyper-rationalism would make them.
For example, as a student, I saw the ad hominem fallacy grossly
overstated in a variety of textbooks that wouldn't know rhetorical
thinking if it hit them with a cement truck (where, after all, does one
cross the line to ad hominem when most argument explicitly *is* "to the
person" and their ethos?). Well, I won't go far down that road. But
the thought did occur.
Cheers --
Doug
Dr. Doug Downs
Asst. Professor, Composition & Rhetoric
Writing Program Coordinator
Dept. of English and Literature
Utah Valley State College
800 W University Pkwy, Orem UT 84058
LA 114w
801-863-8572
>>> "Thelin,William" <wthelin@uakron.edu> 10/09/06 7:08 AM >>>
I don't think this is what I was saying, Doug. I agree with you
completely that readings are not static and that interpretation shapes
texts. To recap: I mentioned in a post that Hairston had a
condescending attitude toward students, which I offered to support with
direct references to her. I also was accused of making a straw person
of her position about what should be taught in English composition.
Therefore, I posted with direct quotations from Hairston on both issues
and added my interpretation. I was again accused of making a straw
person. How can I argue against this? I did not see a post that
claimed I was inaccurate. I did not see a post that challenged my
interpretation. Rather, Kathy and Irv just repeated what they had said
before.
So how did you reach this conclusion that I was taking some pretense to
objectivity? Perhaps I over-stated by saying that people cannot deny
that her words are disturbing, but certainly I did not say my reading
was pure or value-free. If anything, I have openly acknowledged my
feelings about Hairston and have been very forthcoming about my beliefs
politically, pedagogically, etc. I have been calling other people out
for not acknowledging the political stake they have in subscribing to
the pedagogy they do. So I'm a bit confused here first thing on Monday
morning to read your words.
Bill
-----Original Message-----
From: teaching_composition-admin@mailman.eppg.com
[mailto:teaching_composition-admin@mailman.eppg.com] On Behalf Of Doug
Downs
Sent: Sunday, October 08, 2006 4:35 PM
To: teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
Subject: Re: [Teaching_Composition] Irv, Hairston, and Citation
So there's no interpretation in your reading, Bill? You're just telling
us what the text *undeniably* "says"? Your reading of the text is
perfectly objective, not at all shaped by your own ideologies?
So, the meaning of directly quoted texts is not debatable, they
concretely and undeniably say particular things, and readers'
pre-existing lenses have nothing to do with texts' meaning -- isn't this
precisely the understanding of texts that we try to convince our
students isn't true (true in the sense of what's actually going on with
texts)?
I've never been disturbed by Hairston's article taken as a whole, and
I'm not particularly disturbed by the bits you quote; I read them much
differently than you. I do find problematic what I read as her nod to a
sort of classically expressivist notion of what students should be
writing about (whatever they bring to class with them); it seems far too
romantic and in conflict with the rest of what we know about where good
writing comes from. But that's a much different discomfort than that
which you're expressing; I see neither the intention or effect you
specify as inherent in what you're quoting from Hairston.
Why is it so easy to forget how readers work with texts?
Cheers --
Doug
Dr. Doug Downs
Asst. Professor, Composition & Rhetoric
Writing Program Coordinator
Dept. of English and Literature
Utah Valley State College
800 W University Pkwy, Orem UT 84058
LA 114w
801-863-8572
>>> "Thelin,William" <wthelin@uakron.edu> 10/08/06 8:05 AM >>>
Since I quoted Hairson directly, it's hard for me to see how you can
accuse my post of having "flying straw." You can't just take out the
bits and pieces from Hairston you like without acknowledging the rest.
Or I guess you can, as we all do, and use it for your purposes, but you
cannot deny the rest is there and that her words are very disturbing.
Bill
________________________________
From: teaching_composition-admin@mailman.eppg.com on behalf of Kathy
Fitch
Sent: Sat 10/7/2006 8:56 PM
To: teaching_composition@mailman.eppg.com
Subject: [Teaching_Composition] Irv, Hairston, and Citation
I like this bit from Hairston:
<< It's a model that puts dogma before diversity, politics before craft,
ideology before critical thinking, and the social goals of the teacher
before the educational needs of the student. It's a regressive model
that undermines the progress we've made in teaching writing, one that
threatens to silence student voices and jeopardize the process-oriented,
low-risk, student-centered classroom we've worked so hard to establish
as the norm. It's a model that doesn't take freshman English seriously
in its own right but conceives of it as a tool, something to be used.
The new model envisions required writing courses as vehicles for social
reform rather than as student-centered workshops designed to build
students' confidence and competence as writers.>>
Rather than casting students as too fragile to encounter new ideas,
she's building a case for making student writing the cynosure of the
composition classroom. It's a big stretch to construe her as dismissive
of students-a ridiculously bigger one to cast her as promoting racial
stereotyping. I can't seem to work up even a smidge of fear over her
arguing in favor of making student writing the source for practicing,
illustrating, and reinforcing writing skills-and this even though I
don't think student writing necessarily needs to be the only kind of
text ever encountered in FYC.
I saw a whole lot of flying straw, there.
Anyway, I think the _Chronicle_ article appeared on January 23, 1991,
if that helps.
Kathy
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