Celebrating and Validating Rural Literacies in the Writing Classroom

Celebrating and Validating:
Rural Literacies In the Writing Classroom

“A human community, if it is to last long, must exert a sort of a centripetal force, holding local soil and local memory in place.” – Wendell Berry, The Work of Local Culture

A. Questions for consideration:
1.) What are you own preconceived notions of rural people?
2.) Have you encountered and/or absorbed stereotypes of rural literacies?
3.) Do you try validate, support and including the vast range of our student’s identities and backgrounds in the classroom atmosphere and in their writing?

B. Main Ideas:
* Western State; Western University, Students and Communities: 75 percent of The University of Montana’s student population is in-state students, with 38 percent of those students coming from rural areas. In sum, it is fair to say UM has a high population of rural students and backgrounds.

* Agricultural History of Montana as a state – 49 % of Montana landscape is agricultural production and 33% of total agricultural production comes from livestock and cattle - Agriculture is Montana’s biggest export.

* Importance of a place-based education, to celebrate writing with and by the local culture and landscape

* In some instructional pedagogical approaches and attitudes, there is an anti-rural sentiment towards rural students and a process of what Heldke calls, the “stupidification” in popular culture of rural peoples pointing to the gradual marginalization of rural literacies.


What this means in the Writing Class:
1.) Encouragement of Student Literacies:
WHY? Coming directly from the public schooling system, many students are hailing from spending anywhere from 6-12 years in a political system that is rampant with power relations; NCLB, federal funding based on numerical merit of students. In the Freshman writing class, it’s our job to slowly dismantle their approach and behavior towards a writing class. Ex. Not writing for a grade, exploring genres, taking risks, etc..

HOW? Slow dismantling the numerical-based grading, in place of encouragement & validation.

2.) Commitment to Diversity and Differences in Writing / 3.) Helping Rural Students Feel more vested in Academia

WHY? In some respects, it’s the job a writing class to encourage students to engage, discover and validate their own set of knowledge through writing. If the writing class provides them the space to do so, than it may be fair to assume rural students will feel more vested throughout their time in academia.

HOW? An overall commitment to encouraging students to write about who they are, where they come from!

4.) Exploration of Self in the Writing Classroom through a Place-Based approach:

WHY? “Place conscious education, thus is schooling that focuses on the necessary relations – cultural, natural, agricultural, that shape a given place and its human communities. By entering education in a local civic issues, history, biology, economics, literature, and so forth, learners will be guided to imagine the world as interdependent, filled with a variety of locally interdependent places, and to develop a richer sense of citizenship and civic action” (Brooke, 6).

HOW? The writing class has a unique opportunity to present, create, develop and enact various activities that are centered on place and personal experience. The more freshman composition instructors can practice place-based activities and education; perhaps our students will feel a stronger sense of commitment to academia, as they see themselves and their landscapes as important aspects in the writing classroom.

Resources:
Brooke, Robert. Rural Voices: Place-conscious Education and the Teaching of Writing. New York: Teachers College, 2003. Print.
Donehower, Kim, Charlotte Hogg, and Eileen E. Schell. Rural Literacies. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2007. Print.
Greene, Stuart. Literacy as a Civil Right: Reclaiming Social Justice in Literacy Teaching and Learning. New York: Peter Lang, 2008. Print.
Heldke, Lisa M. (Lisa Maree). "Farming Made Her Stupid." Hypatia 21.3 (2006): 151-65. Print.
Hooks, Bell. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.
Reynolds, Nedra. Geographies of Writing: Inhabiting Places and Encountering Difference. Carbondale: Southern Illinois UP, 2004. Print.
Berry, Wendell. The Work of Local Culture. North Point, 1988. Print.