Pedestrian View

The last book on my sabbatical reading list was Mike Rose’s Lives on the Boundary. Part memoir, part rhetorical theory, part public policy polemic, and always engaging, re-reading it was well worth my time. I’d forgotten that CCCC ‘93 in San Diego, he’d autographed my copy. “Best Wishes. Mike Rose. CCCC ‘93.” Bonus for me. (In truth, I have no memory of meeting him. It could be that he autographed a stack and I bought one. In that case, dubious bonus status.)

Regardless, it’s a great book about educating what Rose calls the educational underclass - those that end up in community college or community education programs to whom the mysteries of the ivory tower remain tantalizing, but out of reach. For the most part, these are the students we teach at Lake Superior College.

The first half of the book charts his own education growing up on Vermont Ave. in LA. I think Monopoly got Vermont about right, based on Rose’s portrait (probably worth not one cent more than the $100 asking price). It wasn’t the toughest part of LA, but it was definitely no easy place to grow up. By high school, he’d been labeled “Voc Ed” and was mired in lethargic disinterest until, almost by accident, one of his teachers lit an intellectual spark. His last two years of high school marked an awakening, guided by his English teacher Jack McFarland, which eventually led him to Loyola University, where he nearly flunked out but for the intervention of a couple other teachers there. Finally, he ends up in grad school at UCLA, where he finally becomes disinterested/disillusioned pursuing a PhD in favor of getting involved in literacy.

He joins something called The Teacher Corps in the late ’60s working with disadvantaged South LA elementary students, works for several years with Vietnam Vets in a rehabilitation program, directs a Tutor Center at UCLA, and continues to work with programs that, one way or another, help disadvantaged students gain access to higher education through literacy.

Here’s a smattering of Rosey (though not always rosy) insights:

• Describing remedial literacy curriculum based on “subskills” and achievement tests, he writes, “There ended up being little room in such a curriculum - unless the inventive teacher created it - to explore the real stuff of literacy: conveying something meaningful, communicating information, creating narratives, shaping what we see and feel and believe into written language, listening to and reading stories, playing with the sounds of words.” (109)
• On how we writing teachers interpret error, he writes, “As writers move further away from familiar ways of expressing themselves, the strains on their cognitive and linguistic resources increase, and the number of mechanical and grammatical errors they make shoots up. Before we shake our heads at these errors, we should also consider the possibility that many such linguistic bungles are signs of growth… Error takes place where education begins.” (188-9)
• On how college teachers are trained, he writes, “People emerge from graduate study, then, as political scientists or astronomers or botanists - but not necessarily as educators…it is pretty unlikely that they have been encouraged to think about, say, the cognitive difficulties young people have as they learn how to conduct inquiry in physics or anthropology or linguistics…” (196)
• Finally, “Through all my experiences with people struggling to learn, the one things that strikes me most is the ease with which we misperceive failed performance and the degree to which this misperception both reflects and reinforces the social order.” (205)

Rose ends by talking about what literacy - education and higher ed in general - could be, suggesting “that education is one culture embracing another.” (225) Anyone want a hug?

Seriously, what Rose reminds me ultimately is how human any teaching, but particularly the teaching of writing, is.

Thomas Deans is one of only a few SL/Composition gurus that’s publishing, and Writing Partnerships is a great resource for instructors like me at two-year institutions like Lake Superior College. The book is both theoretical and practical, and Deans uses three case studies that exemplify the paradigm that he develops.

Deans begins by setting the whole concept of service-learning in the contexts of John Dewey and Paulo Freire. He then fleshes this out into his service learning paradigm:

• writing for the community
• writing about the community
• writing with the community

He develops each of the above with a case study.

Writing for the community is shown through the example of an upper level WAC sport management class at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Students there work with community non-profits, developing actual written usable projects, like a First Aide manual for adolescent swimming instrucors at a local YMCA. This practice is probably best suited for four year institutions where experienced writers can more confidently apply their skills to real world situations.

Writing about the community is shown through the example of first year composition students at Bentley College near Boston. Here, students are partnered with community groups in non-writing service situations like tutoring in an urban elementary school after school program. Students are asked to use their service experiences later in the analysis of a social issue, writing an essay that would also include more traditional research. This comes closest to the type of SL I’ve attempted in my composition classes (minus the traditional research element).

Writing with the community is really what I aspire to, though it’s a daunting undertaking. Deans’ case study is Linda Flower’s Community Literacy Center (CLC) partnership with the English Department at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. Founded in 1991, the CLC is located in urban North Pittsburgh. There, undergraduate and graduate student mentors work with urban youth specifically to affect grassroots change. This social activism often takes the form of writing in the CLC’s own publications, and also in other community forums (like newspapers). In Deans’ case study, he shows how CLC students and mentors worked together to address a city curfew issue.

A partnership like the CMU/CLC partnership is much larger than any one instructor/one class situation. Clearly it would require institutional commitment and money. However, I noticed a new Minnesota Campus Compact grant that might fund the beginnings of such a partnership between LSC and local Duluth institutions like Life House, CHUM, Daminao Center, or the Union Gospel Mission. A new 2000 level writing course would probably need to be developed to facilitate the project. It’s something I’m exploring, anyway.

Deans ends the book with several appendices with practical documents from the various case studies, and annotated lists of service learning projects being done at various institutions nation-wide.

Deans also has a student text, Writing and Community Action: A Service-Learning Rhetoric with Readings, that I’ve asked Pearson for a copy of. It might be something I can use with a Comp II class next year.

After I got off the plane in New Orleans a few weeks ago, I proceeded to get on the wrong shuttle, which took me to the wrong hotel (glazed with rain water, beside the white chickens). Turns out that Hilton Garden Inn is not exactly Hilton, like Chevy is not Cadillac, and that there are several of these McHiltons in the city.

It turns out I was saved from a tragic fate by a Golden Mongoose…wait, I’m ahead of myself. Turns out that Penguin Book rep Terese Neumann made the same mistake (much to the mirth of two retired Pennsylvania gamblers, for whom our wrong shuttle was right), and she proposed we share a cab to the right hotel. Upon reaching the correct hotel, to our horror we discovered that the driver was a man with no face…err, I’m ahead again. Upon reaching the hotel, aforementioned Penguin discovered she was cash poor, so I bailed her out with assurances that she’d make good when I visited her exhibit in the CCCC exhibit hall. She was true to her word.

Sorry for the long story, but later while I was handing the money she owed me back to her in exchange for books, she gave me a deal on Oscar Wao, Junot Diaz’s second offering, telling me I had to read it FIRST, and I had to let her know what I thought. “I think it’s going to win the National Book Award,” she said.

Well, Terese. Here it is.

I don’t know anything about National Book Award criteria, but Oscar Wao was fascinating, challenging, and well worth reading in spite of what I’ll call some inconsistencies.

Oscar de Leon (Wao is a nickname he earns) is a pathetic Dominican American whose brief and wondrous life is chronicled in these pages. What fascinated me wasn’t Oscar so much, but the rich portrait Diaz draws of Dominican life and history over the last 75 years, the scifi/fantasy references (particularly Tolkein) that permeate every page, and the footnotes. Footnotes have never been this much fun.

I’ll admit that I’m a Dominican historical neophyte, and that Trujillo (Rafael Leónidas Trujillo Molina [aka El Jefe, Fuckface, or Sauron]) was not someone with whose horrific crimes I was familiar. I can’t say that any more. Through the middle part of the last century, the Dominican people have suffered as much as any people on this planet.

For me, the richest parts of the novel are the histories of Oscar’s mother, Beli, and grandfather, Abelard, whose tragic stories intersect with El Jefe’s in ways that would certainly place him among the worst dictators of all time. Though it’s fiction, from what outside reading I’ve done, I’m certain that Diaz does not exaggerate.

As for Oscar himself, I wasn’t sure I really cared much about him (only about 1/3 of the book is about him). What I found inconsistent were the spare narratives of Oscar’s early life narrated by our Watcher, Yunior, up against the richness of the stories of Beli and Abelard. In theory, Yunior narrates the whole book, but there’s just something missing from his Oscar narratives compared to the others until Oscar returns to the DR himself, and suddenly becomes a compelling character.

Oscar’s transformation is worth waiting for, though, especially since we get one last look at the Golden Mongoose and the man with no face.

After reading Surprised by Joy, I got a hankering to reread C.S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet, which I’d enjoyed in my youth. I had this notion that it might fit into my Science Fiction class next fall. Upon rereading it, I discovered that it wasn’t as good as I remembered it, and I won’t use it in my course.

That’s not to say it’s not worth reading. As one might expect from Lewis, he’s got some theological underpinnings embedded in this space journey, as well as commentary about interplanetary colonization. Perhaps cosmology is a better word than theology. What we learn in Planet is that the various planets in our solar system are each governed by their own diety. Beyond that, it’s not too theologically deep. That depth gets played out in the rest of the trilogy (Perelandra and That Hideous Strength).

Since I’d read it before, Lewis’ surprises weren’t surprising any more; however, when I read it the first time, the “silent planet” wasn’t what I expected it to be, and neither was our planet’s diety.

I like the Britishness of our hero, the philologist Dr. Randsom, who in moments of crisis is apt to say things like “Dear me!” or “I say!” but I don’t plan to complete the trilogy any time soon.

I was in a religious book store with my brother and sister-in-law who were in possession of a 40% off coupon expiring that day. It was clear that I would commit a sin if I didn’t save some money, and so I bought this C.S. Lewis memoir of his early life. It’s been the best 40% I’ve ever saved.

OK, that might be overstatement, but I did enjoy Lewis. He wrote it in 1955, and it’s about his spiritual life through his childhood, adolescence, and early adulthood. Basically, it’s about how he reasoned his way to his Christian faith.

I picture him as Anthony Hopkins (weirdly) writing this in a tweed jacket in his Oxford study back in the fifties, but if you know the Chronicles of Narnia, then you know that even though he’s something of a stuffy academic, he’s never dull and usually surprises you with a wry turn of phrase.

“Joy” comes to him in a few isolated episodes throughout his childhood and adolescence. It’s hard, even for Lewis, to describe what he means by it, but it’s sort of a very intense, bitter-sweet pang or longing that he experiences quite unexpectedly, and then can’t quite figure out where it comes from or why. Much of his intellectual and spiritual life is spent trying, and failing, to recreate that joy.

During his adolescence and early adulthood he describes himself as an atheist, but eventually through various things - people, books, experiences - God comes to him. The chapter where it ultimately happens he titles “Checkmate,” and then describes God’s chess moves (and then I lost my bishop, etc.). Having lost more chess matches than I’ve won, I could relate. I’m sure God would best me, too.

Joy is very droll, but it’s not preachy, and really very interesting. One of my favorite parts is near the end where he talks about the role of heaven and hell. He writes:

I have never seen how a preoccupation with that subject at the outset could fail to corrupt the whole thing. I had been brought up to believe that goodness was goodness only if it were disinterested, and that any hope of reward or fear of punishment contaminated the will. (231)

I was glad to hear that I’m not the only one to suspect a corrupting influence there. I also like his observations of organized church:

And then the fussy, time-wasting botheration of it all! the bells, the crowds, the umbrellas, the notices, the bustle, the perpetual arranging and organizing. Hymns were (and are) extremely disagreeable to me. Of all musical instruments I liked (and like) the organ the least.

Philip Pullman, who’s The Golden Compass trilogy is very popular right now, has made a big deal of out bashing Lewis. I love Pullman’s books, but I love Lewis’s, too. Oh, the botheration of it all.

I’m gonna make that word a regular part of my vocabulary.

Part of my sabbatical plan was also to read Peter Elbow’s cookbook, which my brother Karl told me years ago was the best book about writing he ever read. Granted, it may have been the only book about writing he ever read, but he was an English major before he went to seminary, so maybe he read others. It is a good book. I’m thinking about having my students buy it.

Did I say cookbook? I did, and that’s Elbow’s own metaphor for what he’s written here. Sitting down to read it straight through is a little like sitting down to read…

a cookbook.

As much as the reading could be tedious, I really like Elbow’s advice to writers. I’ve tried out a few recipes.  They’re practical, various, and never the last word. Like he says in the end, “The precondition for writing well is being able to write badly and to write when you’re not in the mood,” (373) (which is my mood right now, but look at me go).   Just sit down and write, ya morons!

He says a lot more, so here’s a smattering:

on Power

• Power means the power to make a difference, to make a dent. (280)
• …you want the power of the Ancient Mariner to transfix readers and make them hear what they don’t want to hear and give them an experience they didn’t set out to have… (280)

on Meaning

• Meanings are in readers, not in words…You must walk up to readers and say, “Let’s go for a ride. You pedal. I’ll steer.” (315)

on Motivation

• We are often told to drive defensively; assume that there’s a driver you don’t notice who is careless or drunk and my kill you. Good advice for driving, but not for writing. (xix)
• How can I get myself to put in the daunting time and effort I need for more consistent good results? The answer, I think, is to cheat – to look for pleasure and shortcuts. (xxi)

on separating Creation from Criticism

• Writing calls on two skills that are so different that they usually conflict with each other: creating and criticizing. (7)
• I’m arguing that we can make a better plan if we plan for nonplanning; we can write better if we build in periods where we remove goals from our mind; we can meet the needs of readers better if we sometimes put readers of out mind – especially at early stages. (xii)

on freewriting (Creation)

• The goal of freewriting is in the process, not the product. (13)
• Write fast….If you can’t say it the way you want to say it, say it the wrong way. (27)
• Who hasn’t had the dismal experience…of sitting there trying to transform one uninteresting thought into an architecture of Roman numerals, capital letters, Arabic numerals, and small letters. (40)
• …don’t be held back by lack of data. You are mind stretching, not trying to be sure. (80)

on revision (Criticism)

• You shouldn’t start revising till you have more good stuff than you can use. (10)
• Now you should read through this draft as a reader. The best way to do this is to read your draft out loud… (36)
• When it comes to words, ideas, feelings, and insights, there is plenty more where that came from. The more you use and throw away, the more you have available. (126)

on Grammar and Usage

• I hate following rules. Nevertheless, the important question is not “Should I follow rules?” The important question is, “Do these rules help me write?” (xxvi)

on Argument

• Try hard to find good arguments for your position, but then try even harder to find arguments to refute yours. (201)
• The best you can hope for – and it is hoping for a great deal – is to get your readers just to understand your point of view even while not changing theirs in the slightest. (203)

on Audience

• Teachers are not the real audience. You don’t write to teachers, you write for them. (220)

on Feedback

• When you get conflicting reactions, block your impulse to figure out which reactions are right. Eat like an owl; take in everything and trust your innards to digest what’s useful and discard what’s not. (264)

on Voice

• …the attainment of real voice is a matter of growth and development rather than mere learning. (302)

Perhaps he says it best in his final chapter about the intangible magic of the written word when he writes, “Use the truth whenever possible. Real events. Real names. In addition, however, practice lying whenever possible.” (370)

Any questions?

Sherman Alexie is probably most famous for writing the screenplay to Smoke Signals back in 1998. Since then, he’s been doing some other things, like competing in the World Heavyweight Poetry Bout and doing stand up comedy. But 2007 saw a novel burst. He published both Flight and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.

What surprised me was this. I had heard that one of these two was billed as “a book for young adults, ” and when I picked up Flight I assumed this was it. I teach an Adolescent Literature course, so I was interested in possibility including it in the course.

The narrator is a fifteen-year-old in-and-out-of-the-system orphan who calls himself Zits. Native Catcher in the Rye immediately came to mind and I read the whole thing never doubting that this was the “young adult” novel. Never mind that it’s full of excruciatingly graphic violence and more F-bombs than the Sopranos, I’d still call it an adolescent novel, so I’m interested to know what True Diary is like.

It’s a fast read - I read it in one day’s time - but ultimately not a great novel. It’s got good moments, like the joy of Zits finally meeting someone who cares enough to help him with skin care products, but ultimately it’s a “message” novel. Each scene is designed to teach a lesson about the human experience, and at the end, both we and Zits are better people. I’m all for saving the world one reader at a time, but great novels are never like this. They make us think and wrestle with issues that matter, but they never preach.

Ultimately, Alexie is preaching here. That’s a No to including it in my course.

For once I’m on the book band wagon. Duluth’s One Book read this spring is Three Cups, and there have been discussion groups at LSC (one of which I’ve attended), plus Greg Mortenson himself is speaking here in a week or so and Sherry and I have tickets (courtesy of Stacy Johnston and LSC CTL, thank you), so I really feel like I’m in the middle of something important. Mortenson’s work is important, and it is what it’s all about.

Sherry read Three Cups last summer, made me want to read it, and then gave it away before I got to it. The truth is, it’s the kind of book that you want to give away because it’s that good.  It’s the story of this sort of bumbling guy, Greg Mortenson, who by chance commits himself to a rather small but impossible vision of building one school for the children of the isolated village of Korphe, Pakistan, that has now grown to hundreds of schools in the Northern Areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan that are providing a balanced education, mostly for girls, contrasting the fundamentalist Islamic jihadist madrasas schools in the same region that have been the incubator for Al Quada and the Taliban.

There are probably several keys to Mortenson and the Central Asia Institute’s success, but what stands out to me is Mortenson’s commitment to local control and advisement by the Pakistani and Afghani people.  He had to learn it the hard way, but it’s their stake in the process that make CAI’s work legitimate and not colonial.  There’s American money behind it, but it would just be more Americans saving the world without that local stake.  Instead, it’s Pakistani and Afghani people empowered to fight their own poverty and stem the violent forces that would use that poverty for its own murderous purposes.

The other key is Mortenson’s humility.  The human condition is such that power and success so often are accompanied by temptation and delusion (see latest example), but so far he seems to be what he appears to be.  I’m really looking forward to hearing him speak next week.

The books has renewed my belief in the power of a few people to affect meaningful change in the world.  It can and is happening, and I, for one, hope to get more involved.  Stay tuned.

Jane Maher’s biography of Shaughnessy is my second sabbatical read (one academic book of the month club), and I finished it right on schedule yesterday (thank heavens for leap day!). Back when I was planning my sabbatical over a year ago, I wanted to reconnect with the passion of my graduate school experience, and while I remember Shaughnessy as being one of the giants of Comp and Rhetoric, I didn’t remember much more than that. Now I know a lot more about her, and I don’t think I could have selected a better text for recharging my commitment to empowering open enrollment students to become writers. High minded drivel, yes, but I like it.

What I like best about Maher’s book is that, while it’s a biography, the “work” part of her title is more than apt. She concentrates as much on Shaughnessy’s work and ideas as she does Shaughnessy’s life. Both are powerful. Both renew my faith in the nobility of what writing instructors - particularly developmental writing instructors - are trying to do. After reading Paulo Friere, I don’t think I could have done better than Shaughnessy. I plan to read her 1977 classic Errors and Expectati0ns when I can squeeze it in, probably this summer.

The book is primarily the story of Shaughnessy’s leadership in CUNY’s Open Admissions program in the early 1970s. In 1970, CUNY granted tuition-free admission to any graduate of the New York City Public School system. The move was unprecedented and controversial, and was essentially abandoned after five years, though pieces of it remain everywhere, especially where I teach - in an open enrollment community college. A writing instructor, Shaughnessy fervently believed in the ability of under prepared students to be successful in academia when almost no one else would.

One of her battles was with the established English faculty, whose belief was that Open Admission dragged down the entire institution - the lofty Ivory Tower. In her 1975 address to the the MLA in San Francisco entitled “Diving In,” she focuses on the development of writing instructors as follows:

Developmental scale of Basic Writing teachers (pp. 162-63)

1. Guarding the Tower: protecting the academy from…those who do not seem to belong in the community of learners.
2. Converting the Natives: learning is thought of…as a steady flow of truth into a void. …it does not occur to [the teacher] to consider the competing logics and values and habits that may be influencing students, often in ways that they themselves are unaware of.
3. Sounding the Depths: it finally occurs to the teacher that the things he or she is trying to teach the students…only appear simple to those who already know them…that sense and nonsense of written English must often collide with spoken English that has been serving students in their negotiations with the world for many years.
4. Diving In: the teacher…must now make a decision that demands professional courage – the decision to remediate himself, to become a student of new disciplines and of his students themselves in order to perceive both their difficulties and their incipient excellence.

I like to think that at some point soon I’ll be diving in.

Shaughnessy grew up a Lutheran from western South Dakota, where I have similar roots, so it was also easy to connect with her spiritual struggles and family commitments, too. Tall, beautiful, and a self described “clothes horse,” Maher notes often how everyone around Shaughnessy was in love with her. I’m in love with her, too.

Do you think there’s something wrong with being in love with a dead woman at least half a century my senior? I’ll ask Sherry. She’ll know.

Reading along with my daughter and her AP English class, I picked up another that I have missed.  Twenty six years ago as a high school senior, I read For Whom the Bell Tolls and A Farewell to Arms and wrote a terrible senior research comparing characters.  I had nothing to say, and no idea how to say it.  Mr. Dyrud, who’d had my brilliant sister and brother before me, said, “This is very disappointing.  I was expecting so much more,” as he handed it back to me.  In truth, it was a B (not terrible, I guess), but I knew it was bad without him having to be disappointed.  Ever a people pleaser, I just wanted him to be pleased.  At that point, becoming an English teacher wasn’t within a million miles of my plans.

How did I get here?

I digress.  This is supposed to be a book review, but I must finish w/ Bell and Arms.   I loved Bell.  Robert Jordan was cool and I felt like I knew him.  The romance and tragedy of the Spanish Civil War moved me.  I was set to head out and fight fascists myself at a moment’s notice.  I was unimpressed by Arms.  I didn’t get Frederick Henry.  The things he would say and do made no sense to me.  In my essay, I was supposed to compare these guys for eight pages.  I used lots of quotes, and have fond memories of a week’s worth of late nights in my parent’s basement with Mom’s manual Smith-Corrona clacking away.  There were moments when I felt like I was saying something.  There were other moments when I’d carefully type, “Ibid.”  Good memories, but it’s no wonder it took me 26 years to Return to Hemmingway.

I’d have to say that Sun kind of falls in with Arms.  Hemmingway’s style is detatched and journalistic, and I  had a hard time connecting with Jake Barnes.  Also 87% of the book seemed to be descriptions of drinking, with occasional eating thrown in.  The whole expatriot scene was foreign.  All of these Americans and Brits are unhappy and hang out together even though they disliked each other intensely.   And where did they get their money?  I guess this was Hemmingway’s point.  They were the Lost Generation (thank you Barnes and Noble synopsis).

I know Jake got his wang shot off in the war, and that he and Brett might have been happy if this had not been the case, but they both were pretty pathetic.  I suppose I was a little in love with Brett.  How could I not be when everyone else was?

I did enjoy the characters of Bill and Romero.  Bill was just a terrifically funny drunk.  He says, “Road to hell paved with unbought stuffed dogs” and “I’m fonder of you than anyone on earth.  I counldn’t tell you that in New York.  It’d mean I was a faggot.”

Romero was just a terribly interesting figure.  Like everyone else, I wanted to know how he got into that green bull fighting suit. 

Finally, the fishing and bullfighting were fascinating.  In these cases, I appreciated the dispassionate but detailed way that Hemmingway presents things.  Jake never acts like he’s excited about these things, but the detail in which he presents things says otherwise.

Anyway, I wouldn’t mind passing around a five liter leather wineskin sometime with some Basques and feeling tight.