Earlier in the semester, I presented on Richard C. Raymond’s “When Writing Professors Teach Literature: Shaping Questions, Finding Answers, Effecting Change”.( CCC 59:3 / FEBRUARY 2008. 473-502) I truly enjoyed this article because I think that all too often, the students we work with in Puerto Rico exhibit many of the same traits of the students encountered by the article’s author. Raymond spent January through July 2003 as visiting professor of American Studies at the University of Shkoder, Albania, one of the poorest countries in Europe, oppressed by communism and corrupt politics.
Like many places in which politics restrain freedom of speech and control what is taught, schools suffered from the ‘banking’ method of instruction. ‘Banking’, as defined by Paulo Freire, is the concept of teachers depositing knowledge into the empty vessels that are the students. The students are passive, not participating in their own education, and the material taught is not necessarily relevant to the students, but it is safe. It does not challenge the establishment.
So imagine Raymond’s surprise when, as an American citizen used to speaking his mind, to living in a democratic society, suddenly found himself in a society just recently throwing off the shackles of communism. He encountered a situation many of us can relate to: overcrowded sections, students who were unaccustomed or even afraid to make suggestions, and he used an interesting technique: an impromptu mix-and-match grab bag of pedagogies, of theories of instruction, and create a hybrid method that in the end, gave students a voice. He used problem-posing theories, social rhetoric, and an equal balance of process and product, never focusing on just writing, and never centering on just reading.
One of the things he used that worked was tying events in literature to the social context the students were living in, making literature relevant and using its themes as writing prompts for the journals they kept. And while the students didn’t all participate in class, the journal entries were thoughtful and expressive, demonstrating that they related to the readings in meaningful ways.
Teachers should give students the freedom to make up their own topics, and they should also open themselves to the students. The example given is the author’s personal essay responding to Emily Dickinson’s “Because I would not stop for Death” by remembering the grieving process when his father died. (486-488) this was easily the most emotional part of the article, how the author opened himself to the students, describing the pain and confusion he felt when he lost his loved one.
Another important discovery the author made was just how important feedback was to these students, who had so far been indoctrinated into working individually, that ‘helping out’ is synonymous with ‘cheating’. He also discovered that self-enveloping (close-reading), as opposed to the appropriation of a work of literature, was a better mechanism to describe personal situations and thoughts. Students would use Dickinson to understand death, Walt Whitman to understand the desire for freedom.
The author, in all fairness, kept a journal much like the students did. In his journals, however, he didn’t write the same assignments as his students, but rather observations of his methods, how the things he tried out worked with the students. He wrote: “I thrilled to watch and listen as they taught each other and began taking responsibility for their country.” (492) And in a very real way, the students also took responsibility for their learning.
The article also explores the difficulties and differences in educational attitudes. For instance, some literature professors refuse to teach students how to write, for it is the job, they say, of composition professors; instead, they set out to cover as much material as possible, expecting students to use prewriting skills learned elsewhere as they read their assignments and write their papers. (496)
One of the things that make this article so effective is how realistic it is. It does not sugarcoat anything; but rather shows the facts that sometimes, not everyone becomes self-evolving – out of the 28 students Raymond had, 2 failed and 5 passed with marginal grades. You can’t help everyone. Not everyone takes to the educational techniques we might employ in a classroom, however effective they may be to all the other students.
