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Articles Conference Reviews |
H.2 Sites of LiteracyH.2 Sites of Literacy Practice and Engagement I was initially drawn to this session by the scheduled presentation on teaching writing in prison. As a long-time prison teacher, I tend to seek out the few (but increasing in number) presentations on prison literacy and pedagogy at each year’s conference. However, I found myself engaged in the work of all the presenters in this session who investigated sites of literacy practice outside of what we define as “the academy.” The four speakers raised important questions about how institutional practices allow us to engage in our work and projects beyond the institution. Deborah Mutnick, Long Island University, “Remixing the Federal Writers Project for the 21st Century”Deborah Mutnick presented both a fascinating history of the Federal Writers Project (FWP) as well as an exploration of what the revival of such a project might mean to writers, students, and teachers today. What if, she asked, President Obama created a “new deal” for the 21st century? Before answering this question, Mutnick provided some background as she informed her audience that the FWP was created during the Depression to provide relief to the unemployed and to stimulate the economy; writing, as conceived by this project, was seen as an important “call to action.” Writers funded by this project produced state and city guides, oral histories, and folklore in an attempt to define a “new” national identity, or a “new map” of America. The FWP, in addition to providing jobs and stimulating the economy, according to Mutnick, invoked “revolution, resistance to fascism and called the viability of capitalism into question.” Perhaps not surprisingly, the revolutionary consciousness of this project was attacked as communist and subversive, and such opposition ultimately ended the project. Mutnick pointed out that the Obama administration is currently circulating the idea of reviving this project, although there is still right-wing opposition. The revival of the FWP, Mutnick speculated, might be important for making new alliances with other arts projects, to providing training and opportunities for new writers, and in asking important questions about who is defined as a writer and whose stories are ultimately told. Mutnick left her audience hopeful that a new FWP might someday be implemented. Such a project would ask new questions, identify new issues, and contribute to a new conversation about writing, national identity, and the use of federal resources. Baotong Gu and Sarah Higinbotham, Georgia State University, “Teaching Writing to a ‘Captive Audience’: Infusing Optimism through Service Learning”Baotong Gu and Sarah Higinbotham, in their respective roles as writing program administrator and teacher at Georgia State University (GSU), recently and voluntarily implemented a college writing class in a Georgia prison. In doing so, Gu and Higinbotham demonstrated the potential for a successful and meaningful service-learning program when administrators and teachers collaborate and support each other. Higinbotham first described GSU as an “urban research university” with a “high degree of civic engagement,” and she discussed how she became interested in the possibility of prison teaching after reading an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education that contrasted teaching inmates and on-campus students. She voluntarily began teaching a writing class at a nearby maximum security prison with an interest in investigating the intersection between her prison and her on-campus teaching. Higinbotham emphasized the engagement and commitment of her prison students as she shared some samples of student writing as well as an engaging video of one of her students performing the “To be or not to be” soliloquy from Hamlet from memory. Higinbotham also shared some of her inmates’ writing with her on-campus students in an attempt to create connections between the two very different groups of students. Higginbotham, clearly committed to and deeply engaged with her students, commented on the ways in which prison teaching “made me a better teacher.” In his role as WPA, Gu spoke about his commitment to supporting Higinbotham and the ways in which the prison program caused him to rethink/refigure key issues such as active learning, ethical social action, and the power of “education to change lives.” Gu noted that this program raised questions for him about the nature and purpose of writing classes and how they can enact “the most cherished values” of the institution and prison education, which can reflect “the highest goals of education.” Gu and Higinbotham ended their presentation by outlining their hopes for expanding and formalizing their program. Marilee Brooks, Michigan State University, “ Using and Belonging in Professional Spaces and Place: How Working from Home is Different from Working at School for Graduate Students in a Rhetoric and Composition Program”When I read the title of this presentation, I did not understand how Brooks’ paper fit in the panel. However, it soon became clear that, like the other speakers, Brooks was investigating how writing and learning takes place outside of institutional spaces as she looked at how the use of physical space impacts graduate students’ sense of professionalism. How, she wondered, do graduate students use physical space to negotiate multiple identities? In order to address this question, Brooks used the theories of Michel deCerteau to investigate conceptions of space. With the use of well-designed Powerpoints, Brooks showed her audience how deCerteau defined the key terms of “space” and “place.” “Space,” for example, is “fluid and relational,” while “place” is “fixed, stable and inward.” Drawing on concepts from environmental psychology, Brooks also explained how a “sense of belonging,” or a relationship to a place, is developed through language. After explaining the background to her work, Brooks went on to present the results of a study she conducted with nine graduate students that investigated how use of physical space (working either at home or on campus) impacted how they negotiated their professional identities. Brooks outlined her methods of gathering information (which included surveys, journals kept by the graduate students, and interviews in which she asked the participants about their perceptions of space/place). In her early findings, Brooks discovered that different kinds of work were performed in different spaces; in fact, the participants’ ways of thinking about space appeared to change the ways they thought about their own professional identities. From her preliminary results, space seems, to Brooks, “physical, social, and conceptual.” This interesting panel brought together speakers who addressed similar and important questions: What kinds of writing and learning take place outside of institutional spaces? How can writing be a force in social change? What kinds of education, learning, and writing are “allowed?” These speakers provided thought-provoking answers to these questions. |