you are limited to two pages, you must be highly selective by focusing on a limited part of this other world. The world you select should be somehow related to your issue, directly or indirectly. You should also create a PPT (captions or other language optional) that visually depicts this other world. Use created or found images from popular media culture, etc. Note: You may find it easier to begin with the visual part.
Project 8: The Monster and the Angel
Following basic directions given in class, list all of your “monsters”—major issues that severely depress and frustrate you—or, you can use the list created on the first night of class. Next, select one of these and write a letter to this “monster” OR write a poem for this monster. Next, create or find an image of the monster you wrote to, and place it into a PPT slide. Then, take the image of the monster apart, tear it up, piece by piece, and reassemble it to depict your new “angel”—or some other creature that is far more benign than your original critter. Physically and actually take apart the pieces and re-arrange them into something more friendly and positive. Finally, write a piece that explains, analyzes, and reflects on this experience.
I am indebted to Deborah Holland and Bari Bumgarner, who introduced me to the first part of this project, writing a letter to one of your demons or monsters. To this I added three more parts. One asks writers to create a visual of their monster, preferably one that they create and not merely lift from the Internet. Second, I then ask writers to physically tear up the monster and re-assemble it into their “angel.” Third, they write another letter, this time to their angel. I wanted students to physically deconstruct their visual representation of their monster (or trauma), and then to physically reconstruct it into its positive or benign counterpart. They engage in the same process with language. You’ll find examples of how writers executed this project in Chapter 4. I believe that language represents reality, but for many people, a photograph or visual is a “closer” approximation of the real.
Project 9: All Issues Great & Small
First, create or find the absolute single image of your issue. Feel free to enhance it if you like, to make it as evil or scary as you think it should be. Next, place it into a PPT slide so that it fills the entire space. Then, create or find five images that somehow represent the best elements in your life, past and/or present; place all five of these positive elements onto a single slide. Third, again on a single slide, place all six images, good and bad, but be sure that the negative image is far larger than the five positive ones. Fourth, place all six images onto a single slide (the five positive and the one negative image), making them all the same size (and necessarily smaller). You may choose to place a photo or other representation of yourself in the center of the slide, with the six smaller images “orbiting” around it. Fifth, again on a single slide, make each of the six slides a different size: the most positive image should be largest; the second most positive should be the next-to-largest, and on down. Position your negative image in any way that you wish. Sixth and finally, several days later, write your analysis-reflection on the whole experience, highlighting why you chose these images and what you were thinking and feeling as you created each slide. Include your overall reflection on this “order,” and try to title or name your entire set of slides.
Project 10: Getting Inside the Quote
Select a direct quote from another source that strongly appeals to you, one that somehow “matches,” parallels, or somehow “speaks to” your issue(s). Choose a quote from any of our readings or from those shared in class, or from any other source, as long as it focuses on language and “writing about trauma” or spirituality in some way. Return to your earlier writings and explain how and why this quote applies to or parallels you and your issue. You may choose to “parse” or break the quote down into smaller chunks or organize this paper however you wish. You may do this assignment as a standard paper or as a PPT paper or some other way.
Project 11: Conversation across Time
Create a conversation, dialogue, or Q&A session between the current you—and the “you” of 25–30 years from now. Label the speakers however you wish (e.g., “Me Now” and “Me Older”), as long as they are cleanly differentiated. Limit this dialogue to no more than 2 pages. Place all or selected portions onto PPT slides that show a visual rendering of each of you on each slide containing bits of conversation. The slides need not be the same ones repeated (though that’s fine). Finally, write a 1-page analysis-reflection on this experience.
Project 12: Therapeutic Meets Professional
Explain which projects or parts of projects would lend themselves to serving as a springboard for a professional publication. Which could be integrated into such an article?
These projects are challenging for students, indicated by their visible thinking, questioning, and talking with fellow students (another great benefit of small peer response groups). In many projects, I try to integrate either an actual visual rendering or ask students to engage in mental imagery or imagination—all of which I like students to manipulate—to juxtapose, alter, shrink, and enlarge. The role of meta-language is also important, so I ask for written reflections about their processes and products to accompany each assignment. All of this demands considerably more than “just academic stuff” from students, as well as the teacher, which I’ll turn to next.
The Teacher
In our fragmented, technologized, over-hyped society, we often surrender to “the cult of the expert.” Often, though, we’re far less needy of specialized training or advice than we’re led to believe—a kind of learned helplessness. On the other hand, some professions suffer from the opposite perception, the “anyone-can-do-it” syndrome. The teaching of writing (and teaching in general) have long been cast into this category. When people decide to write about their own traumas, regardless of their reasons and motivations, an experienced writing teacher can help them reap greater benefits, at a much faster rate, than if they were to go it alone. The younger and more novice the writer, the greater the need for a professional instructor.
A few people, though, will feel no need to seek out a professional teacher of writing. I closely studied Lucy and Kate (see Chapters 3 and 5) precisely for this reason: they were mature experts, who instinctively and quickly turned to the page after experiencing their respective traumatic experiences. It’s also true that a basic, preliminary research decision is whether to study novices or experts. I chose the latter because they could model behaviors that could help everyone. By the same token, most (but not all) of the writers in Chapter 4, “Seven Writers Composing in Word and Image,” were also professional, experienced writing teachers, albeit in earlier-career stages than Lucy and Kate, whom I studied separately, after they independently chose to write about their experiences. The writers explored in Chapter 4 expressed few reservations about exploring trauma through writing.
Experienced, professional writing teachers are needed to help students and others navigate personal traumas for far more reasons than I can note here. First, many people will reasonably argue that teachers should not take on the role of psychologist or counselor. While I clearly understand this position, I also disagree with it, mainly because teachers are not displacing such professionals. I always include a “counselor on call” in my courses, though, fortunately, I have never had to contact them. Second, teachers are the ones “there” all the time, they know their students well, and are called upon to dispense “counseling” on the spot, many times each day, without consulting anyone. It’s always been part of the job.
I believe teachers should face their students’ traumas head-on for many other reasons, several of which appear throughout this book, including the fact that the kinds of thinking and writing involved demonstrate the same qualities of critical thinking as traditional academic writing. (In the pages ahead, you’ll see this demonstrated many times.) As well, the written page is where the subjective meets the objective. We write about trauma encased in our own subjectivity. We must “run
