Healing and Transgression: Exploding

Identity Genres

Mary Ellen Bertolini, “Writing and Healing the Self and Others”

Catharine Wright, "Developing Writers for Social Change”

Kathy Skubikowski, "Hybrid Language, Hybrid Genres"Center for Teaching, Learning, and Research

Writing Program, Middlebury CollegeMiddlebury, Vermont

Writing and Healing: the Self and OthersWriting and Healing: the Self and Others

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,Or else my heart, concealing it, will break;And rather than it shall, I will be freeEven to the uttermost, as I please, in words.

KATHERINA—THE TAMING OF THE SHREW. William Shakespeare.

Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd With a woful agony, 580Which forced me to begin my tale; And then it left me free. Since then, at an uncertain hour, That agony returns: And till my ghastly tale is told, 585This heart within me burns. “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Janie full of the that oldest human longing--self revelation.Their Eyes Were Watching God. Zora Neale Hurston.

Journey: Healing Myself

fine as salt, the grit of you slips through my fingers until one piece of porcelain bone, butterfly- shaped, remains, escaped from flame did these stiff wings house your brain? your heart? or did they hide me, sleeping, in the softness of your secret part?

Healing Journey: Students and Community

Published Middlebury College

April 2001 for

Anisa, Iniko, Tiffany, & Maika

Transformative Effects of Writing

Good narratives or stories. . .organize seemingly infinite facets of overwhelming events. . .Once organized. . .the events are easier to deal with. . . writing moves us to a resolution. . .without resolving . . . traumas, they continue to live with [us].

The health benefits of writing or talking about traumas, then, are twofold.People reach an understanding of these events and, once this is accomplished, they no longer need to inhibit their talking any further.

(Pennebaker 102)

In a way, the sheet of paper, or the computer screen is like that other person to whom you are opening up (Sachini).

Sachini’s Story -- Analyze the Personal

It's a way to put your thoughts in another place and allow them to sit and be analyzed rather than brewing up in an already jumbled up mind (Sachini).

Writing relieves.

Analysis resolves.

Journey: to academic class

off line & on line

Some Writing Needs a Zone of Privacy

New Technologies Changing Pedagogies

I still believe that the power of weblogs is their ability to immediately . . . get feedback, refinement, stories, etc., spurred by my little idea. Never before was this possible.

Peter MerholzOur Blogs, Ourselves.

Posted on 01/25/2002

. . . writing into the images, narrating the story,

and bringing the images to life using the power of

digital media design tools, creates a powerful medium

for presenting a story.Center for Digital Storytelling

Personalize the Analytical-- Bruce Ballenger

While the purpose of the formal academic paper is to “fill gaps” in existing knowledge, the purpose of the research essay is to experiment with new ways of seeing existing knowledge, to find out rather than to prove.

(Beyond Note Cards 83)

WRPR 0202 Writing to Heal TextsLiterature of Loss Establishes Themes and Problems in Safe Zone

AUSTEN, Jane. PERSUASIONMILLER, Arthur. ALL MY SONSMINOT, Susan. MONKEYSPoetry by Auden, Bishop, Dickinson, Fanthorpe, Hughes, Roethke, Wordsworth

Writing to Heal Theory Grounds Discussion, Introduces ResearchPENNEBAKER, James. OPENING UPRICO, Gabrielle. PAIN and POSSIBILITY

Memoirs Provide Models

DIDION, Joan THE YEAR OF MAGICAL THINKINGLEWIS, C.S. A GRIEF OBSERVEDMCCOURT, Frank. ANGELA'S ASHES

Move students through texts,

balancing risk and comfort,so both trust and thinking bloom.

Move students through texts,

balancing risk and comfort,so both trust and thinking bloom.

Online Sites—course information—open to all

Shared Writing building trust: class

Private Writing:pencil & paper

shared as desired

Class blogdiscussion moved from hereto here.

Finding a Balance: Privacy versus Sharing

Students all vote to share workshop on one paper with visiting high school class.

http://mt.middlebury.edu/middblogs/mbertoli/Writing%20to%20Heal%20(06)/

https://segue.middlebury.edu/sites/wrpr0202a-s06

everything was more personal, but it wasn't personal in a scary level.

You only opened by the end of the semester (Sachini).

. . . we were all in a state of being ready--

Exploding Genre BoundariesExploding Genre BoundariesFusing Critical and Creative Assignments:

from critical to creative

Paper #2Spoken words, books and letters have pivotal importance in Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Examine the role of words, books and letters in Persuasion, and compare these occurrences to a time in your own life when spoken words, books or letters played a pivotal role in your own life.

I remember the first essay that we wrote that had a personal aspect to it, and I wrote about the letter that my 3rd grade teacher wrote when my mom got sick (Sarah).

Now I understand-- Sarah’s Story

I remember that I didn't want to read it to the class-- looking back on that

I must have been a whole different person back then.

It also helped me to figure out why that letter was so important-- for years I had thought about it and finally found it in a box of old letters but I never really understood why it was so important.

I understand it much better now-- writing about it was the first step.

Now it wouldn't bother me at all to read that out loud -- probably to any group of people.

Exploding Genre BoundariesExploding Genre BoundariesFusing Critical and Creative Assignments:

from creative to critical

look at yourself

as a memoir writer

consider your own life choice of words,

humor, repetition, structure, detail, other texts, recurring themes

What techniques from Didion,

McCourt, Lewis have you used in

your own writing?

discuss a memorable

moment

Naming and Framing: Gabriele Rico

The paradox is this: the more you try to avoid painful feelings, the more signals you send the brain that they are important; because they have the power to scare you, the pain becomes worse. (Pain and Possibility 110)

The naming of your pain is a private key. . . it will unlock a door to new options (167).

Facing Demons: Paul frames his narrative

•Divorce is a severe social change that takes time to come to grips with.

•Find a way to maintain good mental health. For example talking, writing, or exercising.

•In today’s day and age, you are not the only child with divorced parents.

It’s O.K.! (You are almost the norm.)

Changing Lian’s Perspective“I think through writing about my stories and making

the digital story I understood myself better.”

For more informationSlices of Cake:http://mt.middlebury.edu/middblogs/mbertoli/Slices2/ Visit my blog and

class sites:(Mary Ellen Bertolini)

Anderson, Charles M. and Marian M. MacCurdy (ed). Writing and Healing. Illinois: NCTE, 2000.

Ballenger, Bruce. Beyond Note Cards. New Hampshire: Boynton/Cook, 1999.

Center for Digital Storytelling:DeSalvo, Louise. Writing as a Way of Healing. Beacon Press,

2000.Pennebaker, James. Opening Up. New York: Guilford

Press, 1990.Rico, Gabriele. Pain and Possibility. New York: St. Martin’s

Press, 1991.

http://www.storycenter.org/

Thank you to my students Sachini, Sarah, Paul, and Lian (you know who you really are) for giving permission to share their work.

http://mt.middlebury.edu/middblogs/mbertoli/Writing%20to%20Heal%20(06)/

https://segue.middlebury.edu/sites/wrpr0202a-s06

Healing and Transgression: Exploding Identity Genres

Mary Ellen Bertolini, “Writing and Healing the Self and Others”Catharine Wright, "Developing Writers for Social Change”Kathy Skubikowski, "Hybrid Language, Hybrid Genres"

Center for Teaching, Learning, and ResearchWriting Program

Middlebury CollegeMiddlebury, Vermont