The WPA-l list has once again captured my attention when there are other items on my personal list that I should be doing, now that I am back from my road trip with Lola to Panama and back. I unaccountably find myself lying in my bed at night, my eyes open, thinking of the engaging comments on the list, the different ways of interpreting required writing courses and more broadly, higher education.

I’m writing here rather than on the list for two reasons: I tend to write too much for a list posting, and I want to shift this blog from traveling back to writing about teaching.

I have loved keeping track of my trip to Panama and back through writing. I am half-inclined to pile with Lola into my car and drive though South America, if only I didn’t have to cross the border into (and possibly back through) Panama. In many ways, I think the foundation of that kind of travel writing is the kind we should be encouraging in our required writing classes. The foundation is grounding one’s writing in the writer’s personal experience and from there working outward to consider other experiences, possibly leading to generalizations and from there to theorizing.

If people read my “narrative” of my travels, they might see what I mean: I was writing about more than getting from point A to point B and the sights along the way. I was writing about the differences between traveling and staying home, taking chances and staying safe, learning how to travel alone through the unknown; really, learning how to travel alone with, I hope, some sense of humor about the situations in which one might surprisingly find oneself.

To relate to the “narrative” and “personal writing” discussed on the list: we are straitjacketing ourselves as writers and teachers when we imagine narrative and personal writing as self-contained genres. Our thinking and writing may begin with our personal experiences, but I we naturally work  outward to include in our thinking the experiences of others, and from there, we make comparisons and perhaps rethink our own, moving us into the world of generalizations and theories.

Seriously aged teachers (and Russel Durst) will recognize that I am only ventriloquizing Moffett, who was himself working from theorists like Vygotsky and Piaget.  

As I remember it, Moffett claims in Teaching the Universe of Discourse that utterances are packed with different moves, really, different levels of abstraction. He characterizes them as writing about what is happening (now), what happened (then), what happens (generalizations through comparisons), to what will happen (theorizing from generalizations). His way of imagining the universe of discourse seems far more useful to me than getting locked into limiting discussions about the personal narrative or personal and impersonal writing.

Anyone who had glanced at my blog—or who has worked with me for the past four years (I’ve changed my mind about teaching writing)—knows that I consider students’ attitudes toward writing an important criterion when we evaluate the effect of our teaching. I am only echoing Dewey, Bean, Tagg, and several others on this list (like Nancy) when I say that an important measure of your success as a writing teacher lies in how you and the students in your class have encouraged each other to want to write more. There are of course other skills we should teach about writing, but if you have discouraged their desire to write, you have taught the wrong thing. Dewey calls this mis-education.

I could take this line of thinking into the discussion of social class reproduction, in which higher education and required writing courses are complicit, but others, like Maria, have already described how our required courses and the social structures in our programs perpetuate social class discrimination. I have also argued in Going North that curricula privileging argument, academic discourse, and so-call critical thinking contribute to that discrimination. So I’ll let that rest.

Let me imagine a course (somewhat like what Jerry has described in his deconstruction of personal and impersonal, teacher and student [think Freire]) based somewhat on my claims:

1.     Students write about some kind of personal experience (not restricting their essay to narration (thanks, Jerry)). Many of us have them write about such things as their in-school and out-of-school experiences with writing (or pick your field—music, math, history or any combination)

2.     They read each other’s essays and write back and forth (and discuss) about each other’s experiences.

3.     They write another essay based on what they learned by reading each other’s essays and having others read theirs, perhaps rethinking their own experiences (generalizing).

4.     They read and write back and forth (and discuss) these generalizing essays.

5.     They might speculate in class how they could get information from other students or non-students about this topic. They brainstorm research methods (internet, surveys, interviews [in person and online], libraries). They investigate ways they can engage in each method and perhaps work in groups to develop a research plan; since time is getting short, they might work in teams of two or three, each team working on one research method).

6.     They complete their research and write up as teams or individuals what they learned by their research and what they learned about that research method.
[Ok—this is too much for a semester; maybe we should make this a year course.]

7.     They engage in some discussions (and perhaps further research) about how they keep track of their information and let readers of a future essay know where they got their information (with some discussion of how different rhetorical situations invite different methods of documentation) note: I don’t have a works cited here.

8.     They write a final essay letting others in this class (and possibly other classes) know what they have learned about the subject through this investigative process. They might speculate (theorize) on how ways in which teachers might improve their methods with regard to the subject (or how students might take charge of their own learning processes).

9.     And of course, they should read and write back to each other’s essays and perhaps reflect on what they have learned about the subject, about learning, about research, about theories of attribution, about rhetorical situations, and about writing as communication (or non-communication) as a consequence of this project.  

The teacher should have some way of assessing (as Ed, Norbert, and I have argued) the success of a project like this. I would start by having some way (Karen Nulton and I have written about this in an essay in an upcoming book) of assessing the degree to which the students were engaged in the project. If they weren’t, how could they help us improve it so that they would have enjoyed writing, researching, and reading and writing back to each other.

Note that this kind of curriculum does not require students to buy a book (again: that’s Moffett). If you need models, collect them from other students in previous courses; this does help, but I have found students learn most productively from reading what the others in their class have written.

I will add, finally, that in my many discussions with parents and students in the past several years, I am disturbed by how often we teach students to avoid writing (Karen and I have a lot of data on this). I simply cannot imagine the utility of teaching writing as pain.

Day 23. September 11th

We wake a 7:30. A chorus if birds are singing outside the tent. After a while, we get going. Lola hangs around me closely while I’m taking the tent down and packing. It’s a quiet morning, other’s not up, or at least outside yet. By 8:30, we’re almost ready to leave, and I take my eye off Lola. I turn around and she is gone, down by the lake I assume. I walk down over the rise and see her over to the left by the pier. She is rolling in ecstasy on her back again. I know this will not be pleasant. I go over, and yes, this time she is rolling around on a large, dead fish—looks like a pike that has been in the sun for several days. Lola gets a vigorous bath in the lake. She doesn’t like that.

We are off by nine. It was a pleasant campsite. I have planned my time and expect to arrive in Livonia, Louisiana, where I will be staying with my friends, Renee and Paul, in their resurrected Cajun plantation home that had been in Paul’s family for centuries. It’s one of my favorite houses.

At about ten, we stop for a breakfast, after which we make good time through south Texas. The landscape gradually changes from mesquite to taller trees and mildly rolling hills, the houses still far between. I know my trip is essentially over, although Baton Rouge is really the endpoint, as it was the beginning.

Driving in the United States is, compared to driving through Mexico and Central America, emotionally flat because I know what to expect. Consequently, for the first time since I began this journey back, I plug in my iphone and start listening to the theorized final chapters to On the Road, theorized because a dog had eaten the end of the scroll version. I don’t like it as well as the version that ended with what we know were Kerouac’s actually words. I think the theorized version ends flat.

Then I start listening to Helen Macdonald’s memoir, H is for Hawk. Macdonald is a lovely writer—perhaps too lovely, but I love here themes, all of which speak to my journey: death of a loved one, stuttering attempts to recover, failed subsequent relationships, loneliness, interspecies communication (in Macdonald’s case, people and birds; in mine, people and dogs). In one section, while describing a U-2 pilot’s experience while flying alone for 1-12 hours on the outer edges of the earth’s atmosphere, she quotes, I think, Marianne Moore, who said something like, the best cure for loneliness is solitude. That is it, exactly. Driving alone through Central American and Mexico does not make me a U-2 pilot, and I do not have a book as my co-pilot (as did this U-2 pilot, who had a habit of reading Once and a Future King as he flew—I have Lola), but driving alone through strange country for three weeks provides plenty of solitude, enough to make one an existentialist.

I hit Houston by 1:30 and follow the GPS directions (59 to I-10) straight through downtown instead of taking either of the two possible beltways. The GPS was right (in contrast to its usual information Mexico and CA). But about a little east of Beaumont, I hit stopped traffic. It soon becomes apparent that no one is moving. I am worried, because I know Renee and Paul are expecting me for dinner somewhere around six, but I text my situation and Renee, as always, is gracious, and tells me not to worry.

After about a half-hour of getting nowhere, I see a smart driver drive off the road and across the dirt/grass to the frontage road on the right. I squeeze over in the right lane, and do the same, see the traffic piled up down the frontage road but the entrance to I-10 going West (back) is clear, and so I do a quick map check, take I-10 West (back), take the first road north that I can, another slanting northeast, and after a while, one south back to I-10 to circle around whatever accident is on I-10. I think driving through Mexico and CA, particularly on the way down without maps, has made me a resourceful driver.

I lose about an hour and a half. I’m not going to make it to Renee and Paul’s until 7:30-7:45. I settle into driving this last stretch, listening to H Is for Hawk.

It’s getting dark by the time I pass Lafayette. A little later, I reach the Atchafalaya spillway crossing the incredible Atchafalaya swamp. It goes for about twenty miles. I am coming back to Baton Rouge, and I’m a little bit sad, because this is where a wonderful part of my life with Sarah was. Traveling the spillway, I go through this period of my life, almost as if I’m in a time warp.

It does not escape me that I am nearing the end of my road trip by returning to Baton Rouge on September 11, commemorating the day when thousands lost people they had loved, leaving the survivors to cope with that horrible loss and struggle to repair their broken lives. Or that Sarah died on August 11, 2011. If I were a numerologist, I would try to read this language of loss, noting perhaps that we survivors are odd, not even.

But these things happen. It happened to Helen Macdonald and so many others I have come to know who have lost at least half of their lives. We are left to find our new ways on a strange road. I think my road trip through Mexico and Central America and back has been a metaphor for my journey without Sarah, going down without maps or language and coming back with both. My Spanish is still quite terrible. Going down, I met with anxiety any situation in which I had to speak. Coming back, I looked for situations in which others would tolerate my tortured language.

I’m a little proud that I have made it. 

Day 22 Rolling Around in Someone Else's Shit

We wake at 7:30. I take care of a few emails, correct some things in my last night’s blog, walk Lola, and we’re off by 9:00, our usual time. No restaurant at the hotel, so I’ll find a place on the road.

I expect an uneventful day. The drive north will be mostly flat and with mesquite dominating the landscape.

In a way, I am looking forward to the day, the end of my Mexico/Central America trip, but in a way, I am not. I really like Mexico. Many parts of Mexico are beautiful, and the people are gracious. I love talking to them. And in contrast to the rumors one hears about the police and military, they have without exception been friendly and helpful. So I am sorry to be leaving.

I am surprised by the landscape. It is generally flat and full of mesquite, but this landscape has its own magic. There are rises and to the west, I can see the high mountains. But here’s what’s best: I have taken a road not often taken by gringos. This road goes through uninhabited country. I rarely see a car or truck. I am by myself, the land, the sky, and Lola and I moving through it by car. In the car, I am fixed: it’s the landscape that changes, like a movie. I think of Einstein again: Everything depends on what you imagine as a fixed point. I suppose we all imagine ourselves as the fixed point and it’s everything else that changes.

My movie changes after about an hour. I merge onto 101, and there is a lot of traffic. It’s kind of like people got into my space, and I don’t like that too much. But the time moved swiftly, too swiftly because I don’t want this part of my life to end.

But it does. I hit the border at 12:30. Borders come on you quickly. Suddenly, you have military checkpoints every few miles. The military rarely ask for any identification. When they see my bikes and hear that Lola and I have driven from New Jersey (I always say Philadelphia) to Panama and back, they want to know more about what I’m doing. And I invariably end our conversation by saying, me gusta mucho Mexico. Es un bien pais. And we leave each other with smiles.

Then the border is suddenly there. I measure what I have learned by the lack of any anxiety when approaching the border. I chose the Hidalgo over the Brownsville border because of all the stories about Brownsville, but I doubt that there would have been any difference. The border is a snap. The Mexicans give me a couple of stamps and point me toward the gringos. There is a bit of a line at the USA side, but I spend my time looking for a camp site. Like everyone else, the Americans are surprised that I have driven by myself (with Lola) through Mexico and Central America. One young woman, the border officer asks “And nothing happened to you?” She means kidnapping and extortion. I say, no, not even close. (Well, I did have to pay a couple of bribes.) But violence? Not a chance. This is the difference between what we hear about things and what they are, which you can know only when you try them out for yourself.

I am a little foolish: I have 70 miles of gas left and I just want to get out of McAllen—I really don’t like cities—before I stop for gas. But suddenly I am in Texas country, and in south Texas, there is nothing leading to nothing. After about 40 miles and no towns or gas stations, I go into my oh shit mode. I dial back to 50 mph to get better mileage. I pass one 300 hundred citizen town and no gas station. Finally, I hit an inspection station and I ask the young officer (I have noticed how everyone is young) if there is  a gas station ahead. I think I say, hay un estacion do gasolina Adelante? I have a hard time remembering that I’m in English speaking country. Whenever I meet someone, I say Hola.

Yes, thirteen miles up the road. That is good. I have 40 miles of gas left.

I guess I am on the downside, leaving Mexico. I hit the gas station and everything goes wrong. I try three pumps and various things are                           wrong—like I can’t read the instructions or the machine won’t accept my card. On the third station, the machine doesn’t let me extract my card after inserting it.

I go into the store, and the clerk says, yes, some of the stations aren’t working. A man comes out with a pair of pliers and extracts my card. I give the woman my care to pay from inside and fill up my tank. I am momentarily happy.

I buy some junk food and leave. There is a huge desolate area in back of the station, so I drive there and let Lola out while I decide where I might camp for the night. I see Lola playing around in the weeds and then peeing and pooping, and I a few minutes later, I see here rolling around on her back. In the sand, this is OK, but in the weeds, this is never good news. I call her and she comes, but boy does she stink. I don’t know what kind of shit or dead stuff she was rolling around in, but it stinks.

I very stupidly get mad at her. I blame her for rolling around in shit. I take her over to an adjacent car wash and put in two quarters and can’t get any water. I try another station with a quarter and nothing happens. Three women are washing their truck in an adjacent station, and I ask them how this works—like I want to douse Lola because she really stinks. They tell me you have to put in 1.25 to get it to work. Well, I don’t have 1.25 in quarters and the store is a long walk away. I see a sink with a water faucet, and I consider trying to put Lola in the sink, but the sink is more like for a kitten. I turn the water on and see that the water just pours out of the sink underneath, and I make Lola stand underneath the drain while I wash her with a towel that I will throw away. I am still blaming her. She wonders why I’m so angry. She thinks, all I was doing was rolling around in shit that smelled so good.

I get over this. I know there is a message here—and there is.

I study my map and find a campsite an hour away—near Mathais, Texas. We get there by six, and it is beautiful. I pet Lola and ask her to forgive me. She probably thinks maybe I should try rolling around in someone else’s shit.

After we have put up our tent and settled in or the night, I begin writing, Lola lying in the grass beside the picnic table on which I am writing. Lola loves to camp. If I could depend on her not to wander off while I’m writing, I wouldn’t have to leash her, but we haven’t got there yet. She doesn’t go far, but I need to get her so that when I say lie down, she’ll do that and stay there until I say it’s time for a walk. She’ll get there. She has come a long way since I first got her.

The evening is quiet. As usual, I’m the only tent camper, so no one else is in the tent area, and the RV campers seem to have gone inside. One quiet boat is on the lake. The lake has become smooth, the sun is setting. The dragon flies are thick over the shore. You would have to work to find anything wrong with this world.

Goto Day 22: September 11th