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Junior Writing Seminar Explores Commemoration of Campus History
Courses that teach writing in a content area are sometimes tricky to pull off. At worst, they can languish in a neutral zone, neither fish nor fowl, leaving students and their instructors dissatisfied with a semester in which they are not sure what they accomplished. At their best, they empower students to use writing as means of discovery, as well as communication, and induct them into the mysteries of discourse in a field of study. Students in the History Department's junior writing seminar reported having the latter experience and were hoping to accomplish even more as they wrapped up their semester-long efforts in a course entitled, "The Power of Place: The Politics of Memory on the UMass Campus." Taught by assistant professor Marla Miller, the course originally required students individually to propose commemorative projects for the campus. But in early February, class members asked Miller if they could collaboratively design a memorial and draft a proposal for its construction. "It's so exciting to see them taking ownership of the material in this way, and really seeing themselves as students who can make a difference," Miller said. "They are each designing a piece of the memorial with the notion that it's one structure, one work." Miller said class members are interested in commemorating the GI Bill's effect on campus; the impact of war more generally over the campus's history; inspiring alumni; and student activism. One student, having noticed the variety of markers on campus that memorialize students who have died, is organizing the deaths of students conceptually into a united expression of loss. Another student would like to honor the evolving multiculturalism on campus with a mural depicting an inclusive campus. "Most of them have worked in an element of ephemerality so that future generations could make changes," Miller said. "They were very interested in this idea that things lose their meaning. They found it very disturbing that things could become irrelevant to their community, so they wanted to guard against that. "Part of the mural proposal is that it would be produced collaboratively by different student groups and that it would be replaced again and again to reflect a changing campus society." "Because it is the year 2000, it would be nice to have something physical that people could see [in addition to the time capsule]," said Victoria James, a British exchange student in the course. James describes the proposed memorial as an S-shaped wall with a clock tower in its center, flanked by two walls on the sides, which would commemorate the "missing moments" in University history the students are interested in. "An important part of the memorial is that it [would be] dedicated to students because we felt that students were not well-represented [in campus memorials]," said class member Kathleen South. "We're hoping to have some kind of mural on the clock tower section and then inside of the walls we are going to have some benches," James said. "We would like to have it on Haigis Mall, where people could sit while they are waiting for the bus." Miller's students appear to have taken to heart the Oscar Wilde quotation on their syllabus, which brings together the two topics of the semester: "The one duty that we owe to history is to rewrite it." Not only are they considering how to rewrite the public expression of campus history, but also they have learned that the process of writing is as much about revision as initial inspiration. "It changed the way that I write," James said of the course. "She's made it so that I'm not afraid to read my work after it's written. She's taught us that it's really important to write and rewrite and rewrite until you're happy with what you've written." "The first third of the course is very much content-based," Miller said, "The middle third talks about writing. In the third part it comes together: How do they deliver their content in the most effective writing possible? Hopefully by the end they see the relationship between writing and content." "I have learned how powerful monuments can be," said student David House. "Whole communities have felt strong enough to raise money for memorials and even to protest against them. Memorials can help to shape the identity of a community. "Through writing about these events I have also been able to improve my writing technique and style, which is one of the most important aspects of the class." "Students have this idea that writing is this big, amorphous thing," Miller said. "How do you get people to improve if you don't name what's happening? So we talked about tools that students can use to make their writing more effective. It's not just 'good writing' or 'bad writing,' but tools. One tool Miller's class studied was grammar. "She encouraged us to do things that we'd all been taught not to do," James said, "how to break the rules in a sophisticated way, not breaking them by not noticing. I think everybody's writing has developed a lot this semester. She introduced us to authors and historians who don't write in a stifled way." "What we did with that was look at writing that was written by some of the finest history writers but was wasn't written to their scholarly peers, more essays than academic articles," said Miller. "We read them in targeted forays. One class we just looked at the introductions of these pieces - what tools the authors used to grab our attention. We looked at how long it took to make a point; we counted paragraphs. How do you 'wrap up'? What do you say at the end? "What was useful about that was it gave them a chance to examine their own writing. We spent a week on editing. Where is the extraneous prose? Are the word choices correct and effective? Are they the best words to use? Because we were editing published pieces, it helped them to see that you can always write one more draft and the value of circulating work. "Richard White begins a sentence with 'And.' The students would say, 'we've been told not to do that.' They also told me they'd been taught not to use questions. Stephen Jay Gould uses a lot of questions in his writing. Some of them are rhetorical, and some are sincere. If your grammar isn't rock-solid the rest of the way, then that just doesn't work. "So we got to talk about grammar. The students seemed really pleased by that. Some of our really lively discussions were about grammar. All of a sudden it mattered whether they separated items in a series by commas or semicolons. "I gained so much from our conversations about writing. I feel like I have a much better understanding of what our undergraduates come to campus with and what their frustrations are with the way their writing is addressed and their frustration with their own skills. "I found it entirely encouraging to see how hard they think about writing. To see them ask with genuine sincerity, 'What are the rules, and how do I apply them, and when can I break them?' They told me a lot about the writing training that they got in their high schools, and that's important because I'm picking up that thread in their training." In addition to their final proposals, students wrote four to six pages each week, based on their readings and a series of "self-guided field trips." "I'd never been part of a class that concentrated on the actual university," said James. "It's nice to work on something that you already know and is not completely alien to you. A lot of our assignments were to walk around campus and find the...history. "A lot of the history on campus is hidden. Portraits of past presidents are in Memorial Hall. Aside from that, very little of the building is dedicated to memorabilia. It used to be the student union, but now most students don't have a reason to go there. "It's nice to discover things on our own. She'd point us in the direction. This way we decided what was important and then discussed that. "It's made me much more aware of my surroundings and to notice when someone makes an effort to remember someone or something and to see whether it's successful or not successful." Miller credits the success of the course to her students' hard work and enthusiasm. She also cites assistance from community members who have an interest in commemoration. "This class could not have succeeded without all of the volunteer help," she said. "Mike Milewski in Archives, (assistant professor of Art) Ray Kinoshita and (chair of Judaic and Near Eastern Studies) James Young, and Peter Ives of First Churches Northampton, who is working on the Sojourner Truth memorial. When they came to class, they just brought the subject matter to life for the students. I am very grateful for them." Miller was also pleased that Kristin McCaman, a graduate student in Public History who sits on the time capsule committee, Cindy Dickinson, curator of the Dickinson Homestead, and Marty Smith, manager of Planning and Architecture in Facilities Planning, attended the final class to act as a panel to which the students could present their work. "This allowed the students to see how other people responded to this idea," she said. "They've done hard thinking, and they got good feedback. It's been a ball to do." |
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