The Times They Are a-Changin’- for the Teaching of Writing

    In her article “The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the Teaching of Writing,” Maxine Hairston hypothesizes that a paradigm shift has been developing in the teaching of writing. The earliest signs of this revolution, Hairston suggests, started appearing in the 1950s, but events in the last 25 years have accelerated those changes. The theory that Hairston utilizes in her analyses is one that Thomas Kuhn wrote in 1963 specifically addressing the paradigm shifts that occur in scientific fields.
    Essentially, Kuhn states that paradigms do not shift unless the existing paradigm has been failing in such frequency that researchers begin questioning why the problems they are encountering are not addressed by the traditional model the science community had established. As problems mount, and quick-fixes are applied, with varying degrees of success, the old paradigm, and science community as a result, becomes unstable. Eventually new research will lead to a new conceptual model that addresses the unsolved problems, but only when the number of said problems “reaches crisis proportions and some major figures in the field begin to focus on those unsolved problems” (77). These changes can take time because many members of the science community are intellectually and emotionally vested in the traditional model.
    Although Kuhn’s work specifically considers the science community, Hairston believes it is equally applicable to the humanities. The first course of action to determine the nature of a paradigm shift, she suggests, is to understand the key elements of the current paradigm. A few elements of the old paradigm include a focus on the composed product, an emphasis on usage and style, and the idea that writing cannot be taught, so teaching proper editing skills is teaching writing. Further, she points out that most “college writing teachers in the United States are not professional writing teachers… They are trained as literary critics first and as teachers of literature second, yet out of necessity most of them are doing half or more of their teaching in composition” (79). The lack of training in composition pedagogy negatively impacts more than just the students as many of these teachers are hard-working. The coupling of that devotion with their training, or lack thereof, results in those educators spending far too much time trying to help their students with tasks or evaluations that actually are ultimately ineffective or detrimental to student progress.
    Although Hairston believes changes to this system likely started in the 1950s, recent events have caused a surge in the deterioration of that paradigm. She says the developments that have accelerated the paradigm shift are “open admissions policies, the return to school of veterans and other groups of older students… the national decline in conventional verbal skills, and the ever larger number of high school graduates going on to college” (82). This new category of student did not fit into the old paradigm. Their written responses were shocking to their professors, who thought they knew what to expect from college writers.
    Now, as educators and researchers such as Mina Shaughnessy, Linda Flower and John Hayes ask questions and, more importantly, seek out the answers to those questions, the new paradigm is being hammered out. Hairston describes a number of features that are coming to light about this new paradigm, such as the need to focus instructor intervention during the writing process, not after, and the recursive, as opposed to the more traditional linear, nature of writing.
    I found Hairston’s analysis of the pedagogy of composition much more beneficial than William Woods. Woods suggests that, as new pedagogical and psychological philosophies present themselves, we should adhere to them and do our best to leave the old ones behind. The problem with this total abandonment is, as Hairston states, “New paradigms are apt to be crude, and they seldom possess all the capabilities of their predecessors.” Further, Woods saw the strict standards for style and quality product as obsessions and addictions, whereas Hairston continues, “It is important for us to preserve the best parts of earlier methods for teaching writing: the concern for style and the preservation of high standards for the written product” (88). Ultimately, Hairston’s article presented the problem and highlighted a potential solution without setting unnecessary restrictions upon the learning community, thereby leaving readers (at least this reader) better prepared to address her final challenge to composition and rhetoric scholars: the refining of the new paradigm.