Facing the Sky. Roy F. Fox
trying to accomplish—that if they write and explore personal issues, they will not feel free to do so if a grade dangles over every word they write. I emphasize that this course is an “experiment” for all of us, and one does not judge results as they are occurring. I stress attendance, participation, and completion of all work. More importantly, I emphasize the necessity of responsibility—for themselves, for their colleagues, for me, and for their profession, which includes their dedication to finding “better ways.”
The Weekly Projects
On purpose, I exclude these projects in the syllabus. Instead, they are “reeled out” as we get to them, pretty much in the order presented here, two or three at a time. The reason is that I want to maintain a sequence that moves from the very open and exploratory, to the more focused and creative. I don’t want students to be overly influenced by an assignment too far down the road, thereby influencing what they write in the early projects. Receiving the prompts in batches allows the assignment to germinate in their minds for a longer period. You will find examples of how various students have responded to these projects in Chapter 4, “Seven Writers Composing in Word & Image.” However, Chapter 3, “Lucy” and Chapter 5, “Kate,” focus only on their self-sponsored journal writings and public writings. These two chapters were collected over a much longer span of time, during which I collected data on twelve “writing experts” who had not taken this course or anything similar to it.
For these verbal/visual projects, I suggest a text length of one or two written pages, single-spaced or 1.5 spaces, emphasizing that they can choose whether to go shorter or longer. Most or all papers should be shared in small groups. Students should be free to “try out” various issues, but I expect them to settle on one of them for most of the papers. Most projects require PowerPoint images and manipulation of them, and they may choose to integrate music, voice-over narration, and sound effects. Near the course’s end, for the last project, I ask students to choose from those assignments remaining.
In the following sections, each project’s instructions appear exactly as students received them. I follow a few of the projects with italicized explanations.
Project 1: The Mirror
At home (or in class; bring a hand mirror), for 15 minutes you should stare at yourself in the mirror. Do not look away from the mirror, except to make notes on what you are seeing, thinking, and feeling. When the music stops, you should stop. (When all of the writing is completed, I give them this final instruction.) Next, write up your notes into a good paragraph or page. Next, count the total number of positive or benign comments or words; do the same for the negative comments or words. Finally, write a reflection on the whole experience.
I am indebted to Dr. Sut Jhally of the Media Education Foundation for this activity. Dr. Jhally asks students to simply look at themselves in a mirror for an extended time and to take notes on what they see. I do this during class to ensure that we gaze at ourselves for at least 15 minutes or longer. (It’s harder than you might think.) Jhally’s purpose is for students to demonstrate to themselves and others that they mainly see all the “bad” things in their own faces, all the imperfections, such as the too-big nose, the blemish above the eye, the odd shape of the head or ears. This leads to a discussion of advertising and how consumers are conditioned, over time, to regard themselves as never matching up to the models and perfect people within the constant streams of media which surround us. My purpose in beginning with the mirror activity is similar, but goes beyond this. Sharing our notes, we learn that most of us find fault with ourselves, that we are made to feel inferior for many reasons, not just through advertising. This places us, at the course’s beginning, on a somewhat level playing field.
As a possible follow-up activity to this project, after reading and discussing the “Introduction” in Anderson and McCurdy’s Writing and Healing (1999), especially the discussion of the “existence of self,” and after responding to the Mirror papers in small groups—ask writers to write about what they believe about the existence of a “core” self.
Project 2: Synesthesia (completed in class)
On a long sheet of butcher paper unrolled on the floor, find a place with plenty of room between you and others. Use markers and crayons to draw whatever images come to mind, especially those related to your issue. To begin, you’ll listen to music for a few minutes with the lights turned off. Next, with the lights back on, begin to sketch anything that may be related to one of the traumas you’re considering writing about for this class. This sketch can include words or phrases, if you like, but try to keep it pictorial, however rough it may be. You’ll take your sketch and doodles home, so that you can write a reflection piece on this activity. Turn your drawing in along with your writing. Please refer to the whole drawing and specific parts.
The first music played should last for about 20 minutes and should sound “sad” or “bleak,” such as portions of Verdi’s The Requiem. The next music should switch to something upbeat and lively, such as a Benny Coleman saxophone piece or the Beatles’ Here Comes the Sun.
Project 3: Fixing the Photo
See the example presented in class. Select a photo that is in some way related to your issue. The photo should include people and/or places that represent a relationship(s) that is somehow relevant to your specific traumatic event. Scan this photo into your computer and use Photoshop or other program to manipulate it and change it in a variety of ways (think adding, subtracting, substituting, altering color, background, etc.). You can even draw on the electronic photo. Place the original photo and your altered photo into a PPT, along with your analysis and explanation of both photos—why you chose the original and why you made the changes you did, especially, how and why the altered photo may better represent your perception of these people and this event. Include a brief reflection on both photos and the whole experience.
I’ve used this durable assignment for many years because it generates great writing. It began long before it was easy to deal with photographs and text electronically. It was first called, “The Snapshot Paper,” and asked students to find a significant and meaningful family photo and place it within their written paper—a literal copy, cut and pasted. The only restriction was that the photo not contain too many people (if so, writers often wrote a little about each person, and a cataloging was not good!). I next asked them to study the photo’s details carefully and select one such element to serve as a kind of visual metaphor for the larger issue the writer developed in her text. For example, an arm draped over another person, a slight distance of one person from another, a car in the background, or a raised eyebrow might be the visual counterpart of a discussion of what was occurring during the time the photo was taken, before it was taken, or after it was taken. A description of this visual element often occurred near the beginning of the paper, but writers were free to integrate it anywhere and often returned to it at paper’s end. This Snapshot Paper morphed into the “Fixing the Photo” assignment.
Project 4: Imagining Mama, Part I
Read the assigned chapter from Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, recounting her childhood visit to Dentist Lincoln. First, write an objective, detailed narrative of your issue, no more than two pages. Exclude all thoughts, feelings, or any other subjective “colorings” of the event. That is, write of yourself in 3rd person, as if you are an objective reporter. Second, select 6–8 key images (created or found) to visually communicate your no-frills narrative. On each PowerPoint slide with an image, place 1–3 key sentences from your narrative, to further help tell your story.
Project 5: Imagining Mama, Part II
Change the ending of your no-frills written narrative (or the whole piece, but retaining much of the original message) and PPT narrative, so that the story ends in a neutral or positive manner, just as Angelou imagined a different response from Mama to Dentist Lincoln.
Project 6: Your Objectivity Plus Their Objectivity
Return to your objective narrative from the Angelou assignment (“Angelou Imagining Mama, Part I”). Select three key quotes from this paper and place them in the left-hand column of a split-page or screen (the page or screen should have a vertical line down the middle). Next, research the topics of each of these key quotes, and choose a few direct quotes