Hairston, Maxine. “On Not Being a Composition Slave.” Training the New Teacher of College Composition, edited by Charles W. Bridges, Toni A. Lopez, and Ronald F. Lunsford, National Council of Teachers of English, 1986, pp. 117-129.

In the article, “On Not Being a Composition Slave,” Maxine Hairston argues that the “eror-focused method of teaching writing does not work, and for good psychological and behavioral reasons” (118). Hairston supports her argument through anecdotal evidence, as well as references to other research articles on composition. Her purpose is to show that error-focused grading is harmful to both students and teachers in order to encourage teachers to try different methods of grading papers when teaching composition. She directs her article at composition teachers. As a student and possible future teacher, I found Hairston’s argument sound and I appreciated that she listed different approaches to teaching composition.