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Articles Conference Reviews |
2008D26CostelloWriting the Holocaust: Challenging Assumptions in the Contact Zone Speakers:
Constance Reimer and Carol O’Hara, Friends University, KS, “Transforming the Comfort Zone: Student Contact with the Reality of War” As it so happens, because of a misprint in the program, I went to the wrong floor and missed the first ten minutes of this panel. When I walked in, Reimer and O’Hara’s presentation was in progress. The audience was small but attentive. Reimer and O’Hara were showing slides of student projects. As I sat down, one of the speakers was explaining that they used Kathleen Yancey’s “pop-ups” for this project because they allowed the visuals to connect to the context. There were images of war on the screen. I quickly gathered that the assignment they were describing dealt with the Iraq war. They explained that this assignment was to take an image of war and create a “pop-up”—a kind of bubble form that superimposes text onto the image. These students had read O’Brien’s short story on war and then created their pop-ups. According to Reimer and O’Hara, the themes for the projects varied. Many students were frustrated that the US was still in the war, for instance, but there was no negative imagery of soldiers that appeared in these projects. The students said they felt more helpless than angry. The second sequence in this assignment was to write a letter; a form the speakers claimed connected students to the subject matter. Students were to analyze all the readings and then use three examples to write their letter. Reimer and O’Hara explained that they began their research on this kind of assignment with a couple of questions: 1) how do we motivate students to look at realities; and 2) how do the Oklahoma City bombing or 9/11 affect them? They said that students found images particularly disturbing and shared student responses such as: “images stain your mind” and “it was easier when we didn’t care.” One student even wanted to enlist. They noted again the personal connections that were made by students. All the students’ stories, the speakers noted, “end with hope.” Sometimes they got student responses they weren’t expecting (especially responses to actual events, like a soldier who reflected on his own experiences). Students saw how soldiers stopped feeling and came to the conclusion that “war changes people.” For Reimer and O’Hara, these personal connections outweighed any complications that came with teaching this topic. They explained that the unit was supposed to be three to four weeks long, but it went on much longer. They adjusted the schedule based on this student interest. They had quotes from many students evaluating the class as a whole and a handout that described the assignment in depth. The handout also included more excerpts from students about their personal connections to the work they were doing. I may have missed this in the beginning, but it would have been valuable to examine some of these comments in the presentation as well. There were some interesting statements, for instance, from students reevaluating their preconceptions about race and class and the military. The presentation itself, however, focused on student response as hopeful or lacking negative imagery towards soldiers, and while this was worthwhile, it masked the more complex responses that Reimer and O’Hara had recorded in the handout. As this panel was divided between two topics, a short discussion followed the first portion. One audience member noted that Reimer and O’Hara used mostly American texts for student reading. He asked: are you trying to make them understand war as an American experience or as global? The speakers responded that the topic of war started out as a discussion of America’s ties to terrorism. I think the questioner wanted a bit more in response; I know I did. The reading choices were interesting and I would have liked the rationale for their choices stated more explicitly. Another audience member asked: did discussion develop along political lines? Not really, Reimer and O’Hara responded. It got political when students used a bit of sarcasm, but most of the focus was on the soldiers. In the individual evaluations afterward, however, we saw different, and more political opinions. Sandie Friedman, George Washington University, Washington D.C., “From Awe to Authority: First Year Students Writing the Holocaust” Friedman began with a handout of quotations. She explained that she and her colleague, Gamber, teach primarily first-year writing and primary texts having to do with the Holocaust. They both work in Washington D.C., so the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) is a great local resource that they incorporate into this teaching. Friedman explained that while Gamber’s approach challenges students to connect, she wants distance. With this distance from primary texts and the museum (as a text), she suggested, we can bring ourselves to a new place. It is a dangerous place to start first-year writing she admitted, because students often tend toward cliché, nonsense, or oversimplification. But these reactions, she insisted, can be seen as a symptom of the anxiety that surrounds writing about the Holocaust. Friedman cited Bartholomae’s “Inventing the University” as a premise for the teaching of first-year writers; they aren’t scholars yet. So, when you add the Holocaust, you have two tasks to undertake. She also cited Sommers’ notion of the “novice as expert,” to explain that students writing about the Holocaust are writing about a subject that paralyzes experts. Langer’s identification of the “limits of language” applies to all of us. Friedman proposed that teaching first-year writing with the Holocaust is an exemplary way to promote student growth because they can overcome anxiety. She described staging the first project as an “encounter between texts”—not the texts themselves. The first assignment is called a “lens essay.” In this assignment, students use one essay to read another (good examples of excerpts from this were provided on the handout). The student will feel either affinity or a counter feeling. They choose one passage and take it to the USHMM to formulate some questions. Jody’s questions on the handout were used to demonstrate how a student could use the USHMM to complicate questions and the lens text. Martin’s excerpt on the handout was broken down by Friedman to explain how it adopts the skepticism of the lens text (Peter Novick’s The Holocaust in American Life). In his comments, Friedman noted, Martin shows a rhetorical misunderstanding; he finds only flaws with the museum and doesn’t look deeper. Martin, Friedman stated, waits for a lesson that does not come. Jody, on the other hand, looks for messages. She sees the legitimization of American foreign policy in the museum and looks for politics. She was also influenced by her lens essay (Omer Bartov’s “Chambers of Horror”), but she sees layers. For Friedman, this “staging” is important. First-year writing engagement is crucial. Students look at the constructed nature of texts, perhaps for the first time. With this knowledge, they can look at the whole landscape differently and read the USHMM against the grain. Martin mistakes against the grain as dismissal. But, Friedman says, using the lens text can move students toward being scholars and help them approach first-year writing and the Holocaust. Cayo Gamber, George Washington University, Washington D.C., “Paper Tombstones: Teaching the Holocaust in a Writing Class” Gamber said that she prefaces each class about the Holocaust class with two caveats: 1) I’m not teaching this subject to prevent another, and 2) I’m not attempting to provide answers. Gamber attempts, as Terence de Pres suggests, to help students become reader-witnesses – and this is her reason to teach the Holocaust. Students engage with primary documents like oral histories from the USHMM. As Gamber noted, oral history projects can, as Geoffrey Hartman suggests, transfer the listener into a witness, and a larger communal bond might occur. Gamber’s focus in this presentation was also on particular assignments. One assignment involved viewing oral histories at the USHMM. She described one student, Tim, who wrote on Hitler’s mis-education of young Germans. Tim’s argument was based on the oral histories he had viewed that recounted how quickly the German people changed over to new views. The change happened literally from one week to another. He found this disturbing. For Tim, the fact that the memories of the rejection victims suffered at the hands of these mis-educated children were still so fresh was also disturbing. In his outrage, he used writing as an outlet. He wrote about how changes in curriculum changed the notion of self as a citizen within a nation. For Tim, this illuminated the important role schools play in creating citizens for Tim. Gamber’s second discussion focused on another assignment that began with viewing photographs. Quoting Marianne Hirsch, Gamber noted how engaging with photographs can be similar to oral histories – very personal. She circulated a well-known photograph that shows naked women in the concentrations camps. Writing in both cases can be a form of witness, she said, but with photographs, there is a deeper unease. The spectator’s gaze complicates things, because the perpetrator dictated how the victims would be remembered. Gamber noted some student comments. One student asked: the photos are perpetrator images but why were they documented? Another said: my looking enacts a violation of the women (and makes me complicit), but it can also be an act of validation because I encountered them in the USHMM. Gamber agreed with this last statement, saying that this student could be said to have “rescued the women from oblivion.” This was part of her proof that it is meaningful for first-year writers to write the Holocaust, because students create alliances as witnesses. She quoted Dori Laub in saying that witnessing needs a listener. Students can be aware that they are that listener. As a result, they may understand that writing about this topic is a responsibility; they’ll be “writing for the dead.” These courses allow primary research experience and make students engage as writers. The discussion that followed this portion involved some sharing and some questions. One audience member did study abroad in Vienna. He commented that he liked the different approaches. Another audience member was interested in Martin. I’ve had him in my class too he said—what do you do with that? Friedman’s response reiterated her paper nicely. She stated that “Martin” types require a shift in attitude. He waits for the museum to affect him like a play, but she wants him to make a connection for himself, pass obstacles—move from awe to authority (a nice return to her title). The audience member then rejoined that there are forces within the museum that make a student take a passive attitude. Then there are other, internal forces of resistance. In some respects, there’s nothing one can do with Martin. Another audience member suggested that perhaps Martin is an example of the difference between interpretation and experience. Martin’s experience will always be valid, but his interpretation is maybe more invalid. After the panel there was an exchange of texts for classes on the Holocaust. It was at this point I thought that perhaps the panel had been named too narrowly. It seemed to have drawn an audience primarily interested in the Holocaust. Audience members and Friedman and Gamber discussed Leventhal and Levi’s chapter on the “Drowned and the Saved” for example. It was a nice exchange of ideas with a group experienced and committed to the subject. I teach the Holocaust as well, which was my reason to go to see this panel. I was impressed with the thoughtful assignments presented and by the use of primary texts and the USHMM. I like the idea of writing and doing at the same time, which both Friedman and Gamber seemed to advocate. All the speakers gave some good insights into teaching controversial subjects. |