Writing the College: RCAH Students Contribute to Building Stories Project

Community exists where people choose to make it so; making it so is work.

— Erik Rothenbuhler

This labor of building community … is deeply connected to memory.

— Phaedra Pezzullo

Did your teacher ever ask you to write an essay as punishment—as in "Give me 500 words on why you should never run with scissors"? The poet Mark Halliday has written a brilliant parody of the punishment essay. "One Thousand Words on Why You Should Not Talk During a Fire Drill," which won a Pushcart Prize, makes clever use of inflated language, blatant redundancy, and other bombastic devices. A sample: "The concept of not talking during a fire drill is closely related to the concept of the value of silence or what we call quiet" (46).

Halliday's essay is able to hold the reader's attention for several pages by saying, with striking ingenuity, next to nothing.

Many of us have felt that school writing is often not much better than a kind of punishment. Why am I writing this essay on X?  Because my teacher made me do it.  Likewise, many of us have felt that our success in a particular writing assignment lies in finding a clever way to say nothing for the required number of pages.

For many reasons, writing assigned in the context of a class can feel like a meaningless exercise. Writing that does not reach beyond the teacher or classroom feels different from the kinds of writing we engage in to get work done. We write a grant proposal because we need money; an annual report is crucial to maintaining good relations with stockholders; a brochure for a nonprofit organization is essential for raising awareness and eliciting support.

But the “work” that writing can do is sometimes less tangible (and more important). In Fall 2007, for example, RCAH students used writing to begin building a collective memory of the RCAH.

RCAH students in Professor Monberg’s and Professor Sheridan’s sections of RCAH 111 “Writing in Transcultural Contexts” were challenged to produce creative renderings of the Building Stories Project. Working collaboratively in small groups, these students researched existing archives, gathered new materials (interviews, stories, and photos), produced mixed-media projects, and hosted a public exhibition of their work. One of the pedagogical goals for this approach was to create a context in which students’ work would be valued outside the classroom—by members of the RCAH community and by those who helped to plan, build, and sustain the College.

We asked students to propose “imaginative, compelling, and professional” projects to

(1)  honor and make visible the work that went into (and continues to go into) the building of the RCAH—the physical structures that form the home of the College as well as the development of the College's mission, curriculum, and community; and

(2)  capture the experience of building the College for historical purposes.

We stressed that these projects were to be made public in various venues, including an open house at the end of the semester and perhaps more permanent venues, such as wall space (in the case of paintings) and the RCAH website (in the case of digital projects).

Few guidelines were spelled out. Groups determined for themselves what would constitute an appropriate response; they decided not only what themes to emphasize but also what media to use and what venue would ultimately make the best home for their final projects. All of these decisions, however, needed to reflect the specified purpose of the larger Building Stories Project.

Groups developed formal proposals in which they explained why they felt their ideas for their projects were compelling and appropriate. They presented these projects to their classmates and instructor, but also to other representatives of the Building Stories Project, including the College’s CASTL Fellows.

Even at the proposal stage, then, students were aware that there were other stakeholders involved beyond the teacher, and that their compositions would potentially be seen, read, and valued by members of a larger community.

Projects were exhibited at an open house at the end of Fall semester 2007. This open house was the inaugural event of the LookOut! Gallery, the College's new art gallery.

In fact, the LookOut! Gallery was not yet completely finished at the time of our event; with the help of Professor Carolyn Loeb, Director of Exhibition, Gallery, and Performance Space, we used the space's under-construction status to foreground the theme of the event, adding ladders, tarps, hard hats, construction tools, and other reminders of construction work.

As photos of the event reveal, the open house was well attended, generating energy and excitement. In addition to students from all of the sections of RCAH 111, the event was attended by family members, CASTL Fellows, Music Mentors, RCAH faculty and staff, Dean Esquith, as well as several construction workers, all of whom engaged students in discussions about their projects.

Since that event, we have begun to find more permanent homes for projects. Three of the wall hangings are currently on display in the spaces of the College, and we are in the process of readying other projects for additional venues.

Even as students were tasked with commemorating the work that went into the founding of the RCAH, they were participating in that founding. They were engaging in the “labor of building community” by creating and preserving a collective memory of how the College came to be—and how students will always be a part of writing the College