Confrontational Teaching and Rhetorical Practice

concerned about social justice. Such V teachers feel obliged to respond to the drama of hate, violence, and fear that is now being played out on the national political stage. But exactly how is this obligation to be honored? Such socially concerned teachers-and I am one-must choose between taking confrontational stands against arguments they disagree with, or, conversely, effacing their own beliefs in hopes of ensuring a fuller play of voices in the writing class. Several years ago, Maxine Hairston warned that political advocates can indoctrinate students or intimidate them into parroting the teacher's opinions. The vigorous negative response to Hairston (see Trimbur, Wood, Strickland, Thelin, Rouster, and Mesler in the May 1993 issue of CCC), suggests that she maps a site of real contention in composition. Some agree with Hairston that many modes of writing, including expressivist writing, can encourage diversity and tolerance in the classroom while avoiding overt politics (Fishman and McCarthy). Others endorse more activist, confrontational, or radical teaching. Activist teachers argue that the very act of teaching is a political and ethical intervention mandating a forthright choice of positions, responsibilities, and roles. They agree with Patricia Bizzell that teachers who reject the obligation to promote what they believe are positive values are abandoning their responsibility to the community when they allow a theoretical perspective to silence them on questions of grave importance to common security (283).