Kitchen+Tables+and+Rented+Rooms

For the week of 2/15/09

Kara Says: I can't help but frame Anne Ruggles Gere's Kitchen Tables and Rented Rooms: The Extracurriculum of Composition in anecdotal experience. In August of 2003 I arrived in An Nasiriyah, Iraq, temperatures soaring over 115 degrees and a massive dust storm kicking up the earth. After the mandatory in-briefs, warnings about personal safety and 6 imported bottles of water later, I found a moment to start exploring my new surroundings. I would work in a HAZ, a bombed out (from the 1st war in Iraq) hangar, replete with dusty tents for offices and mazes of caves throughout the building. I spent much of my time in Iraq wandering about in the caves, completely in awe at the graffiti drawn on the hidden walls. Something felt unique there, daring, but I could never really make sense of the feeling that came over me as I read and reread the words and drank in the images on the wall. Reading KTRR helped me to contextualize what I witnessed there. Although Arabic culture, in its most traditional sense, condemns the impurity of what was written on those walls, someone(s) felt compelled to betray the culturally acceptable. There was some intrinsic motivation that drove them to the hidden caves to write what they couldn't express within the confines of their Middle-Eastern culture. In some ways, this seems connected to the writers who seek the extracurriculum of composition for self expression in a way they cannot within the confines of the university classroom.

It seemed evident to me, as Gere asserts, that the "accomplishments of workshops outside classroom walls mirror the goals most of us composition teachers espouse for our students." (78) I continuously noted methods used in these workshops that I have personally enjoyed in my own education as a writer, and either already include or would like to integrate into my lessons as a teacher. The workshop model, the circle of writers responding to one another's work, is familiar, and worked well in my experiences only when students were actually willing to speak up, when they felt they had something valuable, useful to contribute. At the basic writers level, the whole class workshop with guidelines for response provided to students has been somewhat successful. I will likely continue to use this model. The article also triggered considerations for personal writing journals (Historical review-Hale) peer response groups, and integrating elements of performance into lessons. (Thanks!) There is a lot to be learned from the extracurriculum as we know it. I questioned the eurocentric/western culture focus, but at the same time it seems appropriate. It was mentioned briefly in class that the history of writing instruction that we will examine (are examining) excludes the development outside of western thought. It would be interesting to get a survey of the world history of it all. It would be interesting to expand upon Gere's article, looking at the contributions of a multi-cultural extracurriculum and its potential to influence our pedagogy.

I agree with the article's assertion that we (academics) need to acknowledge the activities of the extracurriculum. We need to learn from them, value them and realize that the extracurriculum picks up where we leave off, or where we fail. Much like the Iraqi's that found their way into those caves to express themselves, to compose on the walls what they could not, without condemnation, compose in any other outlet, our students, and non-students find their way to the extracurriculum, where they have an outlet outside of academia. The extracurriculum provides for writers where academia does not, in making cultural connections, in providing opportunities for the development of authentic voice in a non-threatening setting, in eliminating the power structures inherent in the university classroom (no matter how hard a teacher advocates for a classroom community) and in providing opportunities for publication, thus an authentic audience, unlike the frabicated ones often written to in the classroom setting.

Erik Kornkven writes:

As I read Dr. Gere's article, I cannot help but think back to the many writing groups I've been a part of throughout my life. Unfortunately, the ones I was a part of outside of the university were often self congratulatory and unstructured to the point of chaos. The biggest problem I noticed was that it was difficult to reconcile each members goals. For some, the writing group was really a counseling session, a place to bring intensely personal poetry about the difficulties of their lives. For others, it was a place to get criticism on a piece of work for publication, for others, it was a social hour, a time to get out of the house and meet with friends. Taken alone, each of these are perfectly good reasons to be in a writing group, but it becomes problematic when the goals of the individuals are so different. For all the shortcomings of the classroom, it does provide a place for writers to come together with a common goal, even if that goal is simply to pass the class. I found myself wondering if there is a way to combine the structure of the classroom with the environment of the extracurricular meetings. It seems to me that composition instructors could take some tips from the creative writing instructors. For years, the creative writing classroom has been a place of experimentation where instructors try to tease out the personalities of their students, often by creating an environment that resembles Gere's extracurricular spaces more than the standard classroom. Workshops, round tables, spontaneous freewriting, could these elements of the creative writing classroom be introduced to composition? What would a composition classroom modeled after a creative writing course look like?

One thing that would have to change, would be the method of assessment. Often times, creative writing classrooms focus more on the number of submissions to the class than on specific rubrics and guidelines. These submissions are usually not graded individually, but rather, a holistic grade is assessed based on some sort of portfolio at the end of the semester.

Secondly, the class sizes would probably have to be reduced. I have been in creative writing classrooms with 6 students, and some with 16 or more, usually, the smaller groups create a more closely knitted social circle. This could be one of the reasons the workshop approach is not used on big campuses, there are simply too many students to get 'processed' to allow for such small class sizes.

Finally, some may question the validity of 'workshopping' a research paper or proposal. I do not envision a composition classroom superimposed on a creative writing one, but rather pulling out key elements from each to create a hybrid, one that perhaps provides that mixture between the academic and extracurricular environments Gere describes. For instance, peer review could still be used. Perhaps even pairing students up for the semester and asking them to continuously review each others work, looking for ways to improve upon not only their skills as a writer, but also as an editor. Collaborative work could still be used, changing the round table to a place for the group to hammer out responsibilities, and coalesce ideas and writing styles.

These are just some ideas for finding some sort of balance. Perhaps what Gere is describing is an opportunity for reform, not only on how we historicize composition, but how we take it into the future as well.

Brenda Zimmerman writes:

Gere’s article of people meeting in their kitchen tables or rented rooms to form a writing group is not really new to me. I have been a member of such writing and reading groups in Minneapolis. I was able to participate in those groups because one of the members in the group was fluent in sign language and that enabled me to join. It was a writer group for women as cancer survivors and we all met once a week to write and share our poetry, short story writings, and our experiences in dealing with cancer, treatment issues and how we depend on family, friends and others for support during recovery time. The experience was similar to what the other women and other folks have said in Gere’s article. I know from my own experience as a participant in that women’s cancer writing group had enabled me to improve my self-worth. The writing experience gave me the ability to express my negative thoughts about my own feelings and my bitterness about cancer. The group encouraged me to write poetry and write about my experiences. We also did a dream journal and that was the highlight moment of the group’s inspirations. In addition, we also did some art work, real art work. We were able to display some of our writings and art work at a local health community center and at a local visual arts center. The writing enabled me to find a way to promote my own thinking and expressing my thoughts and issues regarding life. If I had this shared experience, then I believe that I can engage this same experience to my own deaf community.

Gere talks a lot about other exclusive groups that have formed their own writing groups and engaged the experience of their own community. I would like to share my experience here. I did try to establish a reading group for members of the deaf community when we lived in St. Paul. I set up the time and rented a room at Merriam Park Library. The day came no one showed up in spite of all the advertising and word of mouth. The second time the same thing happened. I could not figure out what it was that made them not want to show up. Finally, it dawned on me that most of them do not have advanced reading skills and they were afraid to admit that and that is why they did not show up. I decided to change my strategy a little bit and set up a small literary reading workshop at that library. Mostly, deaf children showed up but that was good, some deaf adults took part of that. The experience taught me that I have to change things to fit my own community and work on understanding what my community literary needs are. Like Amy Taggart says “know your community discourse” before you write about them or have persons within their own community write about their lives. After we moved to F-M area, I discovered that we have a very small deaf community here and many of them are not even basic writers or readers. They have a lot of trouble with reading and writing. My question to Gere is how do I as a deaf person myself reach out to these people to establish such groups to discover their own experiences? My perspective is that they have a lot to say but do not know how to express themselves in writing. They can express themselves in poetry from ASL, following the oral traditions, and short story telling from deaf culture perspective. I notice that Gere does not mention other excluded groups such as persons with a disability, cancer survivors, people who have survived trauma, near death experiences, and other excluded groups that we are not aware of. How would she tell us as students at the summer institute about those groups. It is possible that many of them do not know that they have the ability to establish these groups on their own. Would I or we be the bridge builders to reach out to them to encourage such formulation of a group so that they can enable their own discourse?

Craig writes: I was just navigating the Wiki and noticed all of you posted responses (that look much different than mine) here instead of on the main page. Since I'm confused about what we're supposed to write and where, I'll put what I wrote on the main page here as well. I want to help students see that their "writing can make a difference in individual and community life" (78).
 * How do ideas from article relate to work we do--or want to do--here?**

Those involved in the extracurriculum seem to have an internal desire to write. However, most students in first-year composition grumble about page limits. Can/how do instructors help students change their attitude about writing?

I suspect others might be able to answer this question, but two of the things I wonder about is the meaning of the word literacy and the function of a literacy center. Does literacy refer to the ability to read and write? Does a literacy center exist to bring people up to a reading/writing level and then no longer allow them to come, or do literacy centers exist to improve people's ability to read and write no matter what their ability level (like a writing center)?
 * Here are our questions for Gere.**

It sounds like people volunteer to work in literacy centers. Would it be possible to have high school students or freshman tutor younger students and/or ELL students? Do tutors undergo training to ensure that the center is committed to certain principles?

On page 78, Gere writes, "Workshops outside classroom walls frequently, however, succeed with those individuals deemed unsuccessful by their compositions instructors." As a new composition instructor, I wonder what it is about the classroom atmosphere and/or instructor that scares students away from writing. Are they deemed unsuccessful by poor grammar? Something else? I'm curious about managing my own classroom, but I'm also wondering how to keep a literacy center from becoming too much like the negative sort of composition classrooms.

Katie: Similar to Craig, I was a little confused about what to say and how to say it.

I was really struck by Gere's statement: “//In suggesting a more inclusive perspective, I am not advocating that composition studies work to appropriate the extracurriculum or tear down classroom walls. Rather, I propose that we avoid an uncritical narrative of professionalization and acknowledge the extracurriculum as a legitimate and autonomous cultural formation that undertakes its own projects. Such an inclusive perspective can lead us to tap and listen to messages through the walls, to consider how we can learn from and contribute to composition’s extracurriculum in our classes//” (86) In the fall, I waited until the end of the semester to ask my students what types of writing they liked to do. I was really surprised that I had a few creative writers, and a few bloggers. For some reason, I had assumed they all disliked writing and that it didn't have any real-life application for them beyond academia. This semester, I included questions about everyday writing in my "getting to know you" survey, and have been able to adapt my lessons to the writing interests of my students. This passage from Gere really illustrates the need for academia to take notice of and embrace "outside" forms of writing.
 * __How do ideas from the article relate to work we do--or want to do--here?__**

After our readings (both for HWI and Composition Theory) it has become clear that one of the best ways to teach composition is by individualized instruction. Gere's thoughts on writing workshops and collaboration seem to reinforce these ideas.

Landon writes:

I found this articles very interesting in many ways. First, I thought that the writing workshops in rural communities was something that I would be interested in studying. Not really for the composition involved, but for the history behind that rural community. Often, especially when discussing the history of the Great Plains region or other regions that were isolated for an extended period of time, local writing - including fiction have often been sources for historians trying to understand what it was like to settle the plains and the hardships families and communities had to deal with. I thought it was interesting how Gere discussed these writing workshops not only in terms of creating and developing writing ability but also they have an impact on the community as a whole in developing new solutions for the community and keeping track of that history.

I really like the was Kara has associated this type of writing community with the caves in Iraq. I am sure it was hard to understand what all that discourse meant, much like it is somewhat hard to interpret fiction in regards to a communities history, but no doubt the discourse community that was created in these caves have a meaning, a history, and perhaps if we understood what they were saying, we would see how they were developing plans for their community.

I have never been part of an extra-curricular writing community but I have seen some of Gere's ideas take place at NDSU when I took creative writing classes. These classes were definitely more informal than a traditional class, most class periods were used for workshopping people's work. This was somewhat successful because of the class sizes, which were usually a little bit smaller than most writing classes (even freshman composition). I don't know how much this process helped me become a better writer, I would probably say that just having a group of people there waiting for your work, or making you compose for a reason gave me motivation to write, so in that sense it was successful.

One thing that I would like to discuss with Gere in the difference between a writing group within an actual community and a writing group created in an online community. Obviously both of these communities have the potential to help writers, it would seem that an online community might be more convenient to those involved but I think there are limitations to the online environment. What Gere is discussing with these groups is something that I feel cannot be duplicated in an online environment. It seems these days that everyone wants to attract attention to grand problems (and there are a lot of them) and the best way to do this is to "reach the masses" that can be targeted by creating an online community. I think this broad brush approach may only deepen any crisis or problem within an actual community. I think the face-to-face connection, shared history, and the development of solutions that can be readily adapted to a small, known and understanding local community should lead people away from broad brush solutions to a communities problem and create more of these workshops in small cities and towns all over the country. I would like to hear her input on extracurriculum writing communities that meet and have an actual place of existence vs. those that are virtual.