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.

And now for the personal challenge. Sarah threw down the gauntlet in regard to my claim that I could write a poem completely from Postmodern CCCC 2008 conference titles.  (Yes, in one broad sweep I’m lumping Postmodern and Deconstructionist et al thought into one binary basket.  Mercy!)

In truth, I think such titles are on the wane at CCCC. When I attended 15 years ago, I could swear that every other one paren(the)sized or bracketiz[ed] something of por[ten]tious (Un)Meaning (but I’m not going to support the accuracy of my memory; for this exercise, gut feeling is enough). Of over 600 scheduled sessions this year, I only found about 20 PoMo/DeCons. Also, of those 20, not one used []s (parenthesis ascending). How (Dis)appointing. I and Jacques Derrida de(rid)e a (de)clining down(turn).

My rule was to use only words or phases appearing in conference titles. I wimp(ed) out on my original goal to write a sonnet, but I offer it anyway as a monument to mean(ing)less/ful[ness].

Derrida’s Gift

(re)Defining Community
Reclaiming the (Con)Textual Product
(Re)claiming the Literacy Agenda
Facebook
Reasearch(ing) Spaces
(Re)Building Reality
Reinterpreting and (Re)inscribing Bodily (Un)Realities
Fundamentalism
(Re)Charting the (Dis)Courses of
Discourse(s)
Aliens, (Ex)Gays, and Lesbians
Call(ing) and Response(ding) to
Changing Realities
(Re)presenting Hidden Realities
(Re)Writing Political Landscapes
Writing Real(ities)
(Re)Writing the Realities of
New Orleans

One of the great perks of my sabbatical is that I got to attend the Conference on College Composition and Communication in New Orleans a few weeks ago. The knock against CCCC in community college circles is this; it’s a bunch of grad students and windy PhDs just reading papers with post-modern titles like “(Re)Charting the (Dis)Courses of Faith and Politics.” That’s a fair criticism.

Call me strange, but I like those po-mo titles. I’m thinking of collecting some and creating a po-mo poem at some point. As a grad student, I presented twice at CCCC, and I felt like I was part of an important conversation, something that I don’t feel very often when I’m in the thick of teaching. Therefore, I thoroughly enjoyed the conference, appreciated the efforts of those dewy eyed grad students and windy PhDs, and came away with some new energy. I attended more sessions than ought to be legal, so MnSCU got it’s money’s worth, too.

I’ll include links to my full conference notes below, but first let me briefly note three ideas that have stuck with me.

1. The Believing Game. Peter Elbow, Pat Bizzell, and some others presented around this idea that Elbow apparently coined several year ago. The believing game is essentially the neglected ugly sister of critical thinking. Academia has essentially honed the doubting game to a highly developed skill. We train our students to study everything looking for weakness. For this we have Descartes to blame, since he swore to question everything. The doubting game, of course, offers something important, but the believing game offers something of equal importance. It allows us a way to understand things that really seem wrong. As Elbow said, “That really sounds wrong to me. Help me think about it some more so that I can understand what you see as valuable about it.” Basically, we ignore the believing game, jump straight to the doubting game, and are worse critical thinkers for it, resulting in polarized discussions at all levels of discourse.
2. Institutionalized Service Learning. I attended a Service Learning Special Interest Group meeting where I met a lot of great people doing interesting things in service learning. What was interesting, though, was what someone brought up about the dangers of institutions co-opting the SL train for their own purposes. Until hearing this, I had only considered that institutional support must be a good thing. However, when institutions start using it in their PR, then we lose that edgy, Freirean, grassroots element and our students just become showcase tools. It’s not all bad, but it’s something to think about.
3. Community Publishing. There’s a whole grassroots movement that would be exciting to get involved in where people from primarily low-end socio-economic neighborhoods are writing and publishing their own stories - self ethnographies, so to speak. My favorite is New Orleans’ own Neighborhood Story Project. I’m thinking about somehow getting LSC students involved with places in Duluth like CHUM and Damiano Center, working similarly to help those people tell their stories.

That’s the short scoop. If you want to read all of my voluminous notes (you really don’t want to, but my deep respect for you, oh reader, tells me that making them available to you is the right thing), follow the links below.

• CCCC Notes, Thursday, April 3, 2008.
• CCCC Notes, Friday, April 4, 2008.

While visiting with Rachel and Abram of the Neighborhood Story Project in New Orleans Saturday (April 5), Sherry and I found out that there would be a Second Line Parade noon the next day starting at some obscure street intersection that meant nothing to us touristas. I had a slight notion what this meant because my daughter’s school Jazz Band had played a Second Line piece at a concert last year.

It was an all brass (tuba playing bass) with percussion (snare and bass drum) mobile procession. It was loose, fun, everyone got a solo, and I got to play long comping on a banjo (I’m a third rate banjo player, but I’ve learned to fake playing most stringed instruments). We were a bunch of white kids (grant me this one exaggeration) trying on our “soul.”

Turns out that Second Line parades happen nearly every Sunday in New Orleans. They’re local events sponsored by Social and Pleasure Clubs from around the city where a brass band and costumed dancers lead neighborhood people winding through their own streets. No one watches a Second Line parade because everyone’s in it. As it winds its way, it grows as people come out of their houses and join the parade. Since Katrina, these parades have taken on an even more symbolic role of hope, unity, and community than they already had.

Our particular Second Line Parade was sponsored by the Bayou Steppers, (advertised on their banner as the first integrated social and pleasure club in NO). The picture here I stole from NOLA Entertainment, but we were at this very parade. It started at the very humble intersection of 2nd and Dryades where people were milling around while the band got organized. Sherry and I had a quick lunch of some great Cajun shrimp soup with a boiled egg in it sold from the back of a rusty pickup. Then the band started up and we headed out.

It was an amazingly beautiful day, which my pathetic photos don’t do justice to, but suffice it to say that the music was amazing and I’d have missed my flight home to be there if I’d have needed to.

It was a great party - sunny and 80 degrees while at home Duluth was in a sleet storm. It wasn’t all happy, though. At one point, the whole parade stopped while the brass band played a dirge (Just a Closer Walk) to honor someone who had recently died (we never found out who, but it’s a frequent Second Line phenomenon). Also, we wound through a neighborhood that was probably only about 1/3 occupied. Below is an upper level apartment that appeared occupied, but still in shambles.

The parade wound toward downtown and pretty near our hotel, so we eventually abandoned it to catch our flight home.

Interestingly enough, when I was asking hotel staff about Second Line parades, one woman directed me to Harrah’s Casino, where a Second Line band parades around 24/7 while people pump cash into slot machines. The average tourist doesn’t get out of the Quarter/Hotel/Casino district of New Orleans, so she was just responding to what’s normally expected, I guess. I’m glad we didn’t take her advice.

First, an apology. My photography here is pathetic. My kids (on a school trip) had the digital camera, and in an effort to travel light, neither Sherry nor I brought our good 35mm with us to New Orleans, so I ended up buying a disposable camera. Ugh! I’ve never been so sorry I was cheap. I’ve done some terrible digital “enhansing,” but is green sky really better? I’m going to cheat and include a few pertinent pirated internet photos.

But first, a map. Later I’ll refer to the the Lower Ninth Ward (east of shipping canal, right edge of map about half way down), lake Pontchartrain (top), and the drainage canals (running north into Pontchartrain). Study this. Quiz later.

The serious cartographers can find a great series of flood level maps here.

Now I think we’re ready. Here’s the current state of some low income neighborhoods.

This is the rubble of St. Bernard, a low income housing project demolished within the last month (photo taken from the wrong side of a moving bus). All over New Orleans, such projects are being demolished despite protests. Lafitte is another large one we saw that was block after block of rubble. Federally funded, such projects were once updated via a 1 for 1 system. In other words, you tear one down, you build a new one. This kept people in viable housing.

However, recent changes in Federal law have superceded the 1 for 1 system. Federal money is now going toward “mixed income” neighborhoods, where low and middle income family are integrated. The theory is that such neighborhoods will experience fewer of the social problems that have traditionally plagued low income “projects,” such as St. Bernard and Lafitte, or our own Harbor View in Duluth.

The bottom line is that low income housing is being demolished and not replaced. The people who once lived in such places are scattered in a diaspora. Where are they living? No one is sure.

These are pictures from the Lower Ninth Ward, the low income neighborhood that was hit first and hardest by the storm. It’s too complicated to really get into, but the first news out of New Orleans was that it had dodged a bullet; the Lower Ninth Ward had flooded, but the rest of the city was in good shape. Whew! This turned out not to be the case as the rest of the city slowly filled up. Regardless, the Lower Ninth was definitely hit the hardest. About 1 in 3 homes are currently occupied. No one really cares now, just like no one cared when it was first flooded.

Here’s some middle income housing.

These homes are up near Lake Pontchartrain not far from the drainage canals whose levees burst after the storm surge filled the lake. These neighborhoods had a post-war feel to them that’s hard to explain. About half of them seemed to be in a rebuilding phase; the other half were still in shambles. Currently, people living in these neighborhoods battle snakes and rats, in addition to everything else one might imagine.

So what about the afore mentioned drainage canals?

It’s common knowledge now that most of New Orleans (outside the French Quarter, hotel district, and St. Charles Ave.) is below sea level; well here’s visual proof, should you need any. This is the 17th Street Canal just before it meets Lake Pontchartrain, and the water level is clearly higher than the surrounding neighborhood. Every moment of every day, thousands of gallons of water are being pumped out of New Orleans and into these canals, which then drain into Pontchartrain. Most of the stretch of seawall and levee seen here was washed out after Katrina was gone and the skies had cleared. The storm surge had worked its way through the swamps into Pontchartrain, and then up these canals. It didn’t overtop them. It just pushed through them because of faulty construction.

Below is a picture of the solution.

This looks north, the opposite direction from the previous picture. The digitally enhanced sky looks ominous, doesn’t it. Lake Pontchartrain is behind that dam-like structure straight ahead, which is brand new (post-Katrina). The idea is that the next time there’s a hurricane, these dams will close, keeping the lake water from entering the canals. The apparatus on the left is a pumping system which will pump water out of the canal and into the lake. Simple.

That Army Corp of Engineers! What they won’t do for several hundred thousand people who insist onliving below sea level.

I promised a quiz, so here it is. True or false: New Orleans will flood again.

Answer in next post.

Last week I went to the CCCC convention in New Orleans. It was a great conference, but the best part of it happened afterwards when Sherry and I got out of the Quarter and adjacent hotel district and into the real city.

Since my sabbatical focus is Service Learning and Civic Engagement, I went to a conference session about something called the Neighborhood Story Project, where I met Rachel and Abram. NSP is a pre/post-Katrina grass roots, neighborhood based community publishing project whose goal is help New Orleans neighborhoods to tell and publish their stories. On Saturday, Sherry and I were able to join up with their Post-Katrina tour, and see a lot of the rest of the city.

The French Quarter is interesting, but underneath all New Orleans kitsch, it’s your basic tourist trap. It escaped Katrina largely unscathed, and most tourists don’t get beyond it.

Greater New Orleans, however, is a post-war landscape. I’m going to publish pictures later (was used old fashioned film which is not developed yet - such a luddite), but I wanted to throw this up here to let you know that there’s going to be more in the coming weeks.

Because we made a few local connections, we were also able to worship at First African Baptist Church in the 6th district, whose sanctuary had four feet of water after Katrina, and then join a Second Line Parade that started not far away at the intersection of 2nd and Dryades, also in the 6th district. Both of these events would probably rank in my top ten of amazing experiences.

Think of this as sort of a trailer. I can tell y’all are excited.

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, “œLet’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.

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.