A Writing Teacher Writes about Writing Teachers Writing (About Writing)

Abstract

It's one of the axioms of the emerging paradigm of composition pedagogy that to be a competent teacher of writing one needs to be a writer. This common sense notion has been championed over the last ten years or so by such writer/teachers as Donald Murray and Peter Elbow. In a now famous article, The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Teaching of Writing, Maxine Hairston identified twelve features of a new pedagogical paradigm; the last of the twelve, significantly enough, is that Writing teachers should be people who write.' To be sure, many of us would agree. At the same time, although considering ourselves more than just adequate teachers of writing, many of us do not think of ourselves as writers. My guess is that many teachers of writing do not make public use of their written language for reasons that are unique to us. I'd like to write about some of these peculiar difficulties to suggest a useful way for writing teachers, especially those without released time, to respond to student writing and at the same time become people who write. Usually we have good reasons for what we do or do not do, even when these reasons are hidden or unarticulated. There are some good reasons why we often do not write, or at least don't write much. These reasons include the following: (1) no time to write; (2) no compelling reasons to go to the immense trouble of writing; (3) too many literary heroes, dead and alive, who do our talking for us; and (4) the often bitter, bitter taste of some of our own writing remedies.