Healing and Transgression: Exploding Identity Genres

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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 College
• Middlebury, Vermont

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Writing 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 free Even to the
uttermost, as I please, in words. KATHERINATHE
TAMING OF THE SHREW. William Shakespeare.
Forthwith this frame of mine was wrench'd With
a woful agony, 580 Which 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,
585 This 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.
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Journey Healing Myself
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Healing Journey Students and Community
Published Middlebury College April 2001 for
Anisa, Iniko, Tiffany, Maika
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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)
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Sachinis Story -- Analyze the Personal
In a way, the sheet of paper, or the computer
screen is like that other person to whom you are
opening up (Sachini).
Writing relieves.
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).
Analysis resolves.
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Journey to academic class
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Some Writing Needs a Zone of Privacy
off line on line
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New Technologies

• Changing Pedagogies

. . . 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
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
Merholz Our Blogs, Ourselves.
Posted on 01/25/2002
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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)

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WRPR 0202 Writing to Heal Texts
Literature of Loss Establishes Themes and
Problems in Safe Zone AUSTEN, Jane.
PERSUASION MILLER, Arthur. ALL MY
SONS MINOT, Susan. MONKEYS Poetry by Auden,
Bishop, Dickinson, Fanthorpe, Hughes, Roethke,
Wordsworth
Writing to Heal Theory Grounds Discussion,
Introduces Research PENNEBAKER, James. OPENING
UP RICO, Gabrielle. PAIN and POSSIBILITY
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.
Memoirs Provide Models DIDION, Joan THE YEAR
OF MAGICAL THINKING LEWIS, C.S. A GRIEF
OBSERVED MCCOURT, Frank. ANGELA'S ASHES
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Finding a Balance Privacy versus Sharing
Online Sitescourse informationopen to all
Shared Writing building trust class
Class blog discussion moved ? ? from
here to here.
Students all vote to share workshop on one paper
with visiting high school class.
Private Writing pencil paper shared as desired
http//mt.middlebury.edu/middblogs/mbertoli/Writin
g20to20Heal20(06)/
https//segue.middlebury.edu/sites/wrp
r0202a-s06
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. . . we were all in a state of being ready--
everything was more personal, but it wasn't
personal in a scary level. You only opened by
the end of the semester (Sachini).
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Exploding Genre BoundariesFusing Critical and
Creative Assignmentsfrom critical to creative
Paper 2 Spoken words, books and letters have
pivotal importance in Jane Austens 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).
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Now I understand-- Sarahs 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.
Now it wouldn't bother me at all to read that out
loud -- probably to any group of people.
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.
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Exploding Genre BoundariesFusing Critical and
Creative Assignmentsfrom creative to critical
consider your own life
What techniques from Didion, McCourt,
Lewis have you used in your own writing?
choice of words, humor, repetition,
structure, detail, other texts,
recurring themes
look at yourself as a memoir writer
discuss a memorable moment
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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).

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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 todays day and age, you are not the only
• child with divorced parents.
• Its O.K.! (You are almost the norm.)

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Changing Lians PerspectiveI think through
writing about my stories and making the digital
story I understood myself better.
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For more information

• Slices of Cake
• http//mt.middlebury.edu/middblogs/mbertoli/Sli
  ces2/

Visit my blog and class sites (Mary Ellen
Bertolini)
http//mt.middlebury.edu/middblogs/mbertoli/Writin
g20to20Heal20(06)/ https//segue.middlebury.
edu/sites/wrpr0202a-s06
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. Martins 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.
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Healing and Transgression Exploding Identity
Genres
Center for Teaching, Learning, and
Research Writing Program Middlebury
College Middlebury, Vermont

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