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Closing Writing is about telling the truth, and if we as teachers are going to encourage our students to write the truth, we have to be willing to hear, see and accept the truth, and the truth can be painful and hideous, wonderful or uncomfortable. Classes in marginalized communities are a high percentage women of color, and/or low income women living in housing projects, the unheard, forgotten, invisible women of our society. People talk about these women as "they", as if they are not individual women with faces and names and feelings and thoughts. "They" are we, and we are family, and I believe that's where we, as teachers, start; not with "them," but with Kosha and LaShanda and Tiffany and Bar bara and Jeannie and Rosie and Kawanna and Renee and Holly and Ronald, one by one, until we account for all of them. A crack addict murdered A's daughter because she was a crack addict holding out on him. Now A's raising her 5 grand children, alone. B is drinking because someone murdered her son in a drive-by shooting and she can't bear to live. C's husband is dying and her straight-A senior-in-high-school daughter has skipped school for 3 weeks. D never wanted to have kids, and now, at 19, has 5. E's mother said she was stupid and threw her out at 14 when she got pregnant. The father of that child, a 40 year old man, said he would run his car over her if she ever told his identity. F's babies are from her father. G's father has fooled around with her since she was 6. H's mother beats her. These are ABE (Adult Basic Education) students. And now, let's talk about dangling participles. That's not very realistic. How about: "Write about when you were 4," and when the student writes, "my brother and I lived with my mom my dad had done left a year elier cause of me," instead of correcting the spelling and punctuation, you say, "Dad's leave for all kinds of reasons. Even if he said that, it's not true; it's wrong. Four year old girls or boys are not bad. Children are taught to be bad." You correct at a later exercise and sometimes, let your students write to express themselves, to be heard, be validated, understood, accepted, appreciated. Ask your students to write, "If you could turn back time and be anyone, any name, choose any parents or any family member, who would it be?" Have students keep journals and write in their journals at the beginning of class for ten minutes each week, and at the end, too, time permitting. For all people who feel they have nothing, think they have nothing, know they have nothing, they still have themselves, their voice, their writing. (Read Sapphire's Push, or Maya Angelou's I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings or Alice Walker's The Color Purple). |