Initial Response to Hairston

I've just read the Hairston article, and haven't gotten to the responses yet, but the former has definitely gotten me going. She makes a number of points about the causes, problems, and solutions to the liberal focus that she sees in English classrooms, and a few, in particular, caught my attention and inspired a little thought.

First, Hairston offers a number of quotes to support the claim that rhet comp classes show a trend of liberal politicization, where theorists we've discussed, like Bizzell and Berlin, say that the class is necessarily a political atmosphere. Other theorists are quoted as saying that it's necessary to confront students with these political views, to jolt them out of the patriarchal model of the class-- they need to be exposed to feminist and other focii, so that they're no longer being indoctrinated into the capitalist system wholesale. Presented in this setting, these quotes come across as reactionary, inspiring a reaction not just by conservatives, but by anyone opposing the leftist indoctrination of students struggling to represent their own views in writing. Her own arguments, that this move is an attempt to deal with a diversity better represented by traditional practices, and that politics need to be trained away from the classroom, carry a manifesto kind of momentum, like they need to be urgently studied and followed.

What this makes me think is that she's answering a question I had after reading LeFevre, and that Donna raised in class--how much has the social concept of invention influenced the writing classroom? LeFevre's call for students to be directed toward social involvement and consciousness seems to be answered, on some level, by teachers' attempting to raise students' political awareness. The writing classroom is now seen by a number of teachers as a place where social change can occur, which partly explains why they're trying to mold students' ideologies (if that's not too strong a word).

What I mostly wonder is how real this politicization is. Is Hairston documenting a wide-ranging phenomenon? Would the people she quoted in her article want to contextualize their arguments? I could maybe read the responses and find out. Have a great day, brothaz and sistaz.