If you teach writing, you should write.
Composition professor Maxine Hairston offered this "elementary but radical insight" in an article published 25 years ago in the journal Rhetoric Review. "The writing teacher who doesn't write," she said, "is in no more position to diagnose difficulties and offer advice than a soccer coach who has never played soccer."
But Hairston acknowledged that this basic principle can be difficult to put into practice. After all, serious writing demands hard work, and the all-consuming job of teaching students how to write leaves faculty with little time for their own writing.
Yet it can be done, she insisted. And despite the inevitable frustrations, the effort to write can be exhilarating and rewarding.
To encourage teachers (and, by extension, all would-be writers), Hairston provided these ten practical suggestions.
For the complete article, go to Making Time to Write: Maxine Hairston's Ten Writing Tips for Writing Teachers.
Comments
How can conducting a few lectures per week be an all-consuming affair, especially considering that course material remains the same for years, if not for decades?
Irfan’s experience “conducting a few lectures per week” isn’t exactly typical of the work of most composition faculty, the majority of whom work with upwards of 75 to 100 students a term, meeting regularly with them in individual conferences and responding to successive drafts of their essays. Course materials (primarily the students’ writing) change every semester. And in 15 years I’ve never conducted a “lecture” in a comp class. Is it possible that Irfan has never taught a composition course–perhaps has never even taken one?
Irfan certainly isn’t familiar with the workload of a comp instructor in a two-year college: well over 100 students a term, plus advisement, meetings, grading, conferences, writing lab, and more. But It could be worse. Some part-time faculty teach 7 or 8 classes at 2 or 3 different campuses, with different required texts and 25 to 30 students in each class.
Prof. Hairston understood.
At no point did I say that I have taught or that I am currently teaching a course of any type. My question was purely based on the time spent at the university and the knowledge of the routine of the professors there; also, I was not enrolled for a composition course.
When it comes to composition, irrespective of the topic chosen by the student, the teachers have to look for the same problems dealing with structure, coherence, style, delivery, most probably grammatical correctness, and the other problems that a student may be having trouble addressing properly. I have my doubts that the teachers make verifying the authenticity of the content a concern of their. When a person has to look for the same problems over and over again within a single field of study, then after a couple, or may be few, years, it should become a part of who that person is, and instead of a proper analysis, just a focused reading of the material should enable a person in such a position to identify the problems. If according to a teacher of composition, just one term is enough to allow a student of composition to find most of the problems present in the rough draft of his or her work, then identification of those very problems continues to remain the work of one such teacher and by all means should become part of that person’s being (See: Campaign to Cut the Clutter: Zinsser Your Prose).
When it comes to dealing with 75 – 100 students, professors usually have at their disposal a couple of teaching assistants, or at least a teaching assistant, to enable them to deliver the course effectively and without getting overburdened ( time at Uni.).
Lynn Quitman Troyka remains the author whose work made me aware of the acute need to follow work and observations on the writing process and composition, and even as a teacher of composition, she was able to publish at least a couple of titles and remained a contributor in other publications, so must have had time for all the undertakings.
“When it comes to dealing with 75 – 100 students, professors usually have at their disposal a couple of teaching assistants, or at least a teaching assistant, to enable them to deliver the course effectively and without getting overburdened ( time at Uni.).”
Ha! Ha! Ha! Thanks for the belly laugh, Irfan.
I don’t know what “Uni” you went to, but in terms of pay and workload, most composition faculty are a step or two below teaching assistants. And unfortunately grading 100 essays a week never gets easier.
Some odd comments this week, but Maxine Hairston’s advice is excellent. Thanks!