Rocco, Ivy, and Kayleigh's Articles

Rocco's articles were about masculinity and what society needs to do to foster a more accepting place for young men and boys. What really stuck me was the first article when the author explains how his father died. He also goes on to explain that he used humor to cover up his feelings and make the situation more acceptable for himself and others. I could see his humor right off the bat, and almost didn't believe that his father had really died. I think it is really interesting that humor is such a big part of this article because it almost part of the problem. While the author was able to express himself with comedy, he still he,d back a lot of his emotions in order to keep everyone else from feeling a similar kind of pain.

I found Ivy's articles very interesting and interesting in the fact that she will be looking at death and how we as a society interact with it. I think she has a lot of possibilities with her essay and I'm excited to see where she goes. I really liked the essay about Molly Moran and her missing sister because it includes a lot of the same principles we've been talking about this semester. She even references some of the authors we've looked at. What I liked about her essay was how she was able to identify with her writing students once she began her project. It seems to have been something that she did after healing in some way, rather than it being the biggest source of healing for her.

For Kayleigh's essay, I'm a little confused as to what she will be focusing on other than the unconscious since only one link was posted. But I think she can do a lot, especially with what she talked about after fall break regarding her essay.

Lauren, Charlotte, and Karen's Articles

I found both of Lauren's articles very interesting. The piece on the Blunt Instrument about the idea of white men no longer writing because of their privilege was something I had never thought about, and I think it still relates to me as a white writer. Since taking writing classes here at Ithaca, I've tried to keep my writing from being put into a cultural category, but it is impossible. Of course, my writing will be influenced by the kind of life I live and what I experience, but I don't think that I should silence myself in order to allow other more important narratives a chance to e heard. I don't think white male writers should either. because there is an ear for all kinds of stories.

 I think it was very interesting that the author of the article pointed out that men are more likely to submit work, even if it is incomplete and inappropriate for the publication and instead of stopping writing all together, white male writers should just tone it down a little. It reminded me of a class I took about race and the media (I think). One day the professor brought up the wage gap and told us that he doesn't trust men who argue for a raise for women. Instead, be asks why men can't lower their own wages. Why not? Has that ever been an option? Of course it has, but people want to keep what they think they deserve and giving it up is similar to admitting that it is not deserved.

I also read some really interesting things on the JADED website. The ones that stuck out to me were little poems and letters that people had written to their children, either realistic, metaphorical or potential. Each one made me think that these were the kind of narratives that were written in order for the writer to heal. Rather than just simply handing out some advice or encouragement, theses pieces were directly related to each writer's stories and by writing them they were taking the power back from whatever trauma they experienced.

Charlotte's article about emotional literacy reminded me of a time in middle school where my teacher had us all complete a packet about different leaning types. The packet included little tests and questionnaires about  the kinds of things we responded best to. We also learned about our emotional strengths and whether we were introverts or extroverts. After this we needed to complete a project that reflected our different learning styles. This teacher made sure that throughout the year we all experienced a different kind of learning in the class. We made little magazines, had presentations, and had the freedom to do whatever we wanted for big projects.

I think at its core, we enjoyed this experience because we were all validated for our different skills. We were able to bond with our fellow classmates who shared the same styles and feel unique at the same time. This is essentially the goal of humanity, to feel understood and accepted for the different ways we behave.

I also liked her article about why people hide their emotions, but something that I think was missed was how women are also condemned for not being emotional enough. I've had trouble with this my whole life, probably because I have internalized the no-no that is expressing emotions and have instead been very stone faced in many situations. As a young girl, I might not have cried at a quintessential tear-jerker, but I did during Harry Potter. Women and young girls are expected to be very emotional and are faulted for it, but when they take that advice to "control themselves" they are also faulted. I don't really know if there is a solution for this, but would be interested to hear other ideas besides just talking about the problem.

The Forbes article was also really interesting and fit well with Charlotte's first article. I think that if parents of emotionally intelligence and successful people can teach and impact their children so well, why can't we do this in schools? Why can't emotional intelligence be a skill for a resume? If we can use these people as examples and then continue with that, soon everyone would have some kind of emotional intelligence, right?

I think both of Karen's articles go back to the idea of being understood and belonging. Her first article about the way people make decisions in different cultures, makes me think that while Americans want independence and choice, it is all part of the need to belong. It is what we learn in school, and to achieve that we need to be successful. It almost seems like we have less choices and freedom since we are so bogged down by the idea of success and the very formulaic way to achieve it.

Kirsten and Allie's Articles

What I found really interesting about Kirsten's article was one point they made about calming down when feeling nervous, how are you supposed to do that? Anxiety is an issue that a lot of people struggle with and I think that we as a whole are lacking the tools to teach and cope with anxiety. "Calming down" is easy enough to say, but when you think about the meaning behind it, it is difficult to achieve. I think this article really shows the need for emotional literacy and by teaching it to children it will definitely create a space for thinking about tough issues in a new way. Things can be looked at through a more emotional lens without the consequence and taint of taboo like today.

I really enjoyed the links Allie included. I have a little brother and a dad who isn't afraid to admit that he likes Hello Kitty. "I think she's cute" he always says. When we were little me and my sister used to dress my brother up, do his hair and makeup and then take pictures of him after. He had long curly hair that was the softest thing I ever felt. After we cut it it became course and thick. Now he must be a boy. He has to keep up with those stereotypical ideas of masculinity and they are so often challenged that it's almost like walking on eggshells. Now that he's a teenager, those ideas are even more influential, but I think my dad is a strong enough role model for my brother to at least stand firm on his policy of no bug squishing.

Competition

Having younger siblings, competition is a natural and inevitable part of life. Ever since they were born, I feel like I have had to compete with them for attention from my parents, attention at school, from friends and relatives. In school, my goal was to have greats that were always better then my sister's, so that it was her and not me that got in trouble. I wanted to be the better daughter and this was an easy way for me to do it. On an even more extreme level, I tried my best to be better at art than her. Both of of parents went to art school, so art has been a major part of our lives. I think by always trying to be better I snuffed out her creative flame and hogged it for myself. But at the same time, while I worked hard, she made friends and had a lot of fun that it would take me years to discover. 

But probably the most memorable instance of competition that I can remember was when I was in elementary school. Both me and my sister were in the same school, since she is only two years younger than me. I remember she came home with a story she'd written in class and both my parents praised her for her creativity. I heard them and knew I needed to write something better. I came home a few days longer with an even bigger story with illustrations and everything. They praised me just the same and I felt like I had won. When I look back on this, I sometimes think that it didn't affect my sister, for her it was a simple assignment in class, but to me it was about being the best daughter. I wonder where she could have been if I had let her take the spotlight? Maybe she'd be in my place here at Ithaca and I'd still be at home. And then other times I think that it was meant to happen, this is what I was meant to be good at and it was because of my sister that I found my path.

In the end, we both got our stories hung up on the fridge for a while before they were carefully tucked away in a box to be kept.  

"From Trauma to Healing"

In MacCurdy's essay, she talks about the relationship between trauma and memories. She argues that trauma stays with us as snippets of memory rather than the more linear thoughts of everyday life. MacCurdy believes that the best writing comes from healing, because the writer is able to take those ragged emotions and memories associated with the trauma and translate them into another story.

I thought this chapter was really interesting, especially when you consider how a writer is educated. In all of our writing classes, we are asked to write in scene, using vivid images and senses to put the reader in the same space as us. I think these traumatic memories are the stuff that makes up a scene and is why we remember them in such small and vague snippets. MacCurdy's desire for good writing to be healing goes along with the same idea, because the writer is able to get their emotions and memories in order so they can rewrite the story, a story that the reader can then relate to.

I agree with MacCurdy that good writing comes from healing because these traumatic memories an only be made un-traumatic when they are processed and understood--much like the other chapter in this book-- in order to take back the incident and heal.

Personal Essay Exercise

We called it “Monday-itis”.

It was a migraine that slowly crept from the back of my head up to the arch of my eyebrow and sent me to the nurse’s office several times a month. It always hit just before lunch, prompting me to stuff my face with whatever I could reach in hopes that something would make it go away. By the end of school, I was either already asleep in the nurses office/at home or close to vomiting.

After a while, I learned to hide the symptoms, retire to bed early or hide myself in my room for the strict four hours of sleep that would cure me. I hated the way people treated me, pitied me. Some time in fourth or fifth grade, my parents told one of my teachers about the migraines in order to explain why I might not participate or have to leave early some days. A few days later a headache hit and when I asked for permission to go to the nurse's office, my teacher looked at me. His mouth turned down into a deep frown and his eyebrows wrinkled together.

"Headache?" he asked, looking down at me like i was the most pathetic creature he'd ever seen.

All I could so was nod.

…

I had failed this time, the migraine won, and I threw up all over Katie’s new orange colored converse shoes. We went outside and she used the hose to rinse me off like a dog. I felt worse about covering her shoes in throw-up than I did about the stain on my clothes. 

After, I called my dad. I never called him to pick me up. It felt like I was going against the rules of parenting by calling him instead of my mother. I gave him the only directions I knew to Katie’s house: the way the bus went before it dropped me off. Me and Katie sat on the porch, her shoeless and me with a big wet spot on the front of my shirt. 

I heard my dad’s car in the driveway, and I prepared myself for the new pile of guilt and shame. I was sure he would be mad and annoyed that I'd made him come all the way back from work, given him terrible directions, and gotten sick again. 

He came up to me, eyebrows knitted together in concern.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

...

One day when I was in middle school, after I'd learned how to get through  day of school with my Monday-itis, my mother came home hours before she usually did.  I had just crawled into bed when she came into my room without knocking. At first I was ready to send her back out with typical teenager vocab. But then I saw her face. 

She came in and sat down on the edge of my bed. Her eyes were watery. I was silent. She explained that Scotty, her cousin, had died. She told me that if I ever felt so sad, so lonely and desperate, that I could talk to her. She never wanted to see me hurt like Scotty did. Typical for my mother, she even threatened to kill me herself if I ever tried to hurt myself. I nodded, understanding for the moment, but not really knowing. 

Thought Paper

            For my thought paper, I would like to connect two chapters that we read to create a more fluid sense of the topic for writing and healing. I really enjoyed the chapter on Pathographies and the way in which people come to terms with illnesses and would like to connect it to the chapter before it about the brain. I think the chapter on the brain by Alice Brand was very interesting, but it did not fully address the way in which the structure of the brain can also help a person to heal from their trauma. I think connecting this chapter with the pathographies will really help to make that understanding clear.

            While both of these chapters bring up the idea that logic is stronger than emotion, I would like my paper to focus on the opposite. Rather than simply looking at one side, like both of these chapters, I would like to find the balance between logic and emotion and produce a paper that shows the relationship that exists between the logical and emotional aspects of life. I believe that logic and emotion are intertwined with each other and we often make many decisions with both of these factors in mind, whether we know it or not.  Much like self vs. society, logic vs. emotion is very similar, where one side is greatly influenced by the other simply because more pressure exits around it. Decisions about the self are often impacted by the way society would view though decisions. I think logic and emotion act in a similar way. Logical decisions are also impacted by our emotions as vice versa.

I think both Brand and Hawkins’ chapters will be useful towards my argument, but I also want to use my personal experience with coming to terms with an illness as well as blogs created by my classmates. I think their insight will also help to make this distinction between logic and emotion as well as the way our brains help us to cope with trauma much clearer in my essay.

These two chapters are connected strongly by the fact that people are expected to find an outside source of help before turning back to themselves to find a way to heal. The blogs written by my classmates shows this as well, but many responses come from a place of health since they have already turned back towards themselves to discover what it is that they need to heal. Brand’s chapter on the brain shows that the brain is capable of helping us heal, while at the same time is often the reason behind a lot of people’s pain. In order to get better, Brand’s essay argues that we often try to find a cure somewhere else. The same can be said about Hawkins’s essay These people look to doctors to heal their illnesses, of course, but when that doesn’t work the healing process must occur within. The Pathographies come after the medical reports and the science that these patients research in order to find a cure for themselves. The real cure, the one of true healing comes from the pathographies, which allow each patient to come to terms with their illness and take their lives back.

I’d like to combine these ideas to show the way in which the brain influences our idea of ourselves as well as the world around us. I’d also like to look at the relationship between memories and healing, using Brand’s chapter on the brain to convey this. I think that by combining these two chapters, a much clear picture of writing and healing will be revealed, because we will have the science behind the brain as well as the emotion provided by the pathographies and patient stories. 

"Writing About Suicide"

In this chapter, suicide is explored through the work done in Professor Jeffery Berman's class "Literary Suicide". This chapter includes several diaries written by one of his students who responded every week in class with an anonymus letter. These diaries are then explained through the student, Jonathan Schiff and Berman. Both agree that the class was useful when thinking about the relationship between writing and healing but they both also point out something very important.

Jonathan makes it clear that when he told other people that he was taking the class he was almost instantly shunned or looked at strangely. He felt nervous of revealing this information because he knew people would judge him in a way he did not want to be judged and this was because of the stigma that surrounds suicide.

Berman also points out that Jonathan, as well as the other students were able to share some very personal and meaningful work because they were in an environment that allowed them to freely express themselves. They were also in a place that they knew their ideas would be safe and accepted, much like the evidence from previous chapters that shows people heal better when they are involved in a community that accepts them.

I thought this chapter also related well with the chapter on pathographies and illnesses. That chapter expressed the idea that once someone became sick they became an "other". The same can be said about Jonathan weariness to talk about the class and the stigma that surrounds suicide. Jonathan didn't want to talk about his part in the class because he knew that he might be labeled as an unhealthy person. The stories from the other chapter also included this fear. Suicide is also seen as a shameful thing, something that shouldn't be talked about because it is so clearly the opposite of what a healthy person should do, which relates very much to how illnesses affected people in the other chapter. Instead of being healthy and "normal", these people are sick and therefore abnormal. I think chapter brings up a lot of interesting ideas of how we view suicide and all the mixed messages that surround it.

"Teaching Emotional Literacy"

In Jerome Bump's essay he argues that there needs to be some kind of emotional education to go along with what we learn in college. And I have to agree with him. Bump points out that the more education he received the further his emotions got from him, and I think this relates very well to what we have been reading in other chapters where logic always seems to take precedent over emotions. I think this is what we have been taught through social interactions as well as in our education.

Bump argues that students are not taught how to respond to literature in an emotional way, instead they are expected to respond simply to the text and how it relates to life or society. Students are not expected to allow their emotions to be part of a class discussion, and often students are shunned when they do share their personal feelings.

Bump points out that when emotional feelings that are inspired by literature is pushed aside, the opportunity to discuss these emotions is lost. Without the opportunity to explain and explore these feelings that come up, students are often given the short end of the stick and are encouraged to push away their feelings.

I thought this was an interesting chapter and showed a different side of education. I think talking about emotions in the classroom is very important and we definitely don't see enough of it. I think its interesting that when we do, those students are seen as teacher's pets or inferior to the rest of the class because they weren't able to keep their feelings to themselves. I wonder what a classroom would look like it this wasn't the case and students who didn't share their emotions were seen as the ones struggling.

"Voices From the Line"

This essay by Laura Julier talks about the Clothesline Project, which allows women to talk about their trauma by creating a shirt and hanging it on a clothes line. She includes many shirts to illustrate that these women use the experience to confront many different aspects of their lives as well as their trauma. Many women address their attackers, themselves, and their sisters in order to take back their lives and heal in some way.

I think this was an extremely important essay to read, especially right now when Planned Parenthood and women's health care being such an issue. At one point Julier says "The autonomy in making her shirt gives each woman space to wrestle with naming her experience and finding language for it in her own voice and in her own way" (365). This is an issue women struggle with under many circumstances, whether that is not being in control of choosing what to do with her own body or not being able to express herself in a way that can help her heal. I think Julier was able to capture the power of the Clothesline Project while at the same time arguing that the power of the project comes from the connection and strength these women show by telling their stories.

And again, these experiences are accepted through writing and allow each woman to take back her life, because she is in a community that acknowledges her struggle and trauma. And while one woman points out that many might not see a point "because there are still war and AIDs and violence against women," it still serves as an outlet for struggling women.

"Pathography and Enabling Myths"

I found this essay very interesting, and I think its my favorite so far.  In it Anne Hawkins talks about the different ways people come to terms with an illness, often using writing and narrative to help themselves cope with the new world they find themselves in. She points out that once someone becomes sick, they enter a different kind of world, since our society puts so much importance and normality on being healthy. Pathography is the story in which patients tell to summarize their illness, and Hawkins argues that it is a very important step in accepting the event. She also argues that these pathographies exist in both a space of story and memory saying "It is less, in that remembering and writing are selective processes--certain facts are omitted either because they are forgotten o because they do not fit the author's narrative design; and it is more, in that the act of committing experience to narrative form inevitable confers upon it  a particular sequence of events and endows it with a significance that was probably only latent in the original experience. Writing about an experience--any experience--inevitably changes it" (225).

The parallel Hawkins establishes between a medical report and the pathography is similar to what we have been talking about with logic and emotion. On one side you have the facts (logic and medical reports) and on the other you have the emotions (pathographies) that go along with those facts. I think it is interesting that more stock, for patients as well as society, remains in the facts and that it is odd or the last ditch effort to find something to latch onto that forces people to turn to the emotional side. These pathographies serve as a way of healing because they allow a person to face their issue and explain it, essentially taking it back and turning it into something that they can understand on a deeper level.

I think Hawkins has a really good handle on the relationship between the person and healing, and I think this is what would have made Brand's essay better and more relatable to our topic of writing and healing.

"Healing and the Brain"

In this essay, Alice Brand discusses the importance biology has in our development as a species as well as an individual. She begins the essay by pointing out a tiny little gland on our brains called the amygdala and argues that it is one of the most important pieces of our brains for memory. Throughout the essay she explains the different functions of the brain and how exactly it has helped us evolve. But she also talks about its importance in healing.

Emotion plays a large role in this essay, and Brand clearly conveys the lack of attention it gets in education. She argues that we have survived this long because of emotion and classrooms thrive or die because of it. Without emotion, and the highly important amygdala, humans wouldn't be as intelligent and evolved as we are. Brand puts this information forward so that the we can also learn about ways of healing, through language and the natural abilities of the brain. She argues that this is an important and inevitable process, but we seem to ignore it for more rational alternatives.

What I found most interesting about this essay was how the amygdala is fully developed before the hippocampus, which allows memories from early childhood too be stored and saved. Our amygdala's are also responsible for a host of emotions and memories that often impact us without us even realizing. I think the brain is fascinating in general and it is even cooler to hear how our brains are basically machines for dreams and memories.  

Uncomfortable

Church on Sundays was mandatory when I was younger. My mother would wake me up and I'd pretend to fall back asleep. Soon enough she'd pull me out of bed and I would complain, whine, and try to make a deal with her. I'd go next week, I'd be good all week, just don't make me go. She never budged and I always found myself sitting beside her in the pew as the church sang around me.

I remember vividly one morning close to the end of the service. It was before my communion so instead of going up and receiving the Eucharist, I followed my mother with my arms crossed over my chest. I stepped up to the Priest, looking up at him as he leaned over and put a hand on my head.

"Do you accept the body of Christ?" he asked.

I thought for a moment, his words rolling around in my head. My mother stood beside me, still chewing. A moment of panic rushed through me. I didn't know the answer. I looked up at the priest and shook my head.

"No."

My mother leaned in quickly, before he could even take a breath. "She means yes."

The priest chuckled and we moved on, following the line in front of us neatly back to our pew.

Thinking back, I was more uncomfortable with my mother making me change my answer. I was in church, a place where I was expected to act in a certain way, and lying was not included. In the Sundays after that, I was better able to navigate my way through each service, knowing exactly when to leave so for the bathroom so I would miss the point when we were expected to shake hands with the people around me. But the incident has always stuck in my mind and I think it is because I was asked to make a choice in church, and my choice was not accepted. Granted, I was a kid and didn't really know anything about what I was doing or sawing, but my opinion was still ignored.

I think this affected me in other ways in church as well. I struggled with my mother for several more years before she finally gave up and left me home on Sunday mornings, but I was still ingrained with the rules. Whenever I stay with my grandparents, we must go to church. We must dress nice and following along with each song. We must accept the body of Christ and say 'amen'.

"Writing as healing and the Rhetorical Tradition"

Just like the title suggests, T.R. Johnson's essay talks about the progression and tradition of writing as a form of healing. He begins with the ancient Greeks and how writing was associated with healing because trauma was also part of the sickness. Johnson says "The Greeks of this era viewed all disease--not just what we now call post-traumatic stress disorder--as open to the curative powers of language" (90).

Johnson goes on to say that many of this accepted ideas and practices were soon lost due to Plato's idea that writing was not the answer people needed. Johnson instead brings up the opposition to Plato, saying that writing is a way to find one's true self as well as help to heal one's own wounds. To argue his point, Johnson uses the work of Jerome Bruner and Carl Rogers to show that writing is a way to find out more about yourself.

Both Bruner and Rogers directed their work towards some kind of self-actualization. Bruner pushed more towards a researched based form of self-discovery for a writer, which was instead interpreted as simply going against social contexts. Johnson includes a quote by James Berlin, who says "Bruner was not interested in relating knowledge to society...for Bruner students must learn for themselves" (97). Rogers similarly looks at the "self-as-process". Rogers ideas were thought of as escapism and self-indulgence, but Johnson argues that we can learn a lot from taking Rogers's ideas and bringing them into the classroom.

What I found really interesting about this reading was the stuff about the expressivist rhetoric and how there are so many ways to derive meaning from different works. Johnson argues that these ideas offer up an alternative to Plato's ideas and the more rigid forms of thought that would hamper writers like Tim O'Brien. I think it is interesting that writing has always been a way of healing but that certain ideas and ideologies have gotten in the way to keep it from being completely accepted and main stream. It is interesting because with almost every piece we read we learn of a new obstacle in the way of writing and healing, almost like writing in order to heal is just as shameful as the trauma itself.

"Equipment For Living"

In her essay Tilly Warnock talks about how writing is viewed by most people. She argues that it is either seen as a way of living or a kind of coping mechanism. She quotes Burke several times, using his ideas and beliefs as a basis for her own. She goes on to say " I advocate a rhetorical approach to writing and living that provides 'strategies for coping' and 'equipment for living'" (37). Warnock also supports the reader and writer coming together to find meaning in a piece. She argues that this invites readers to come to their own conclusions based on their own experiences rather than just going along with what the writer wants. She delves into a short personal essay that details this, arguing that as a child she was taught how to behave, react, and think about society. She says "the power of language to reflect and deflect and to construct reality was a lesson for white children, who were taught once, implicitly and explicitly, that half f the people in their world did not exist as human beings, and taught later, explicitly and implicitly, that this view was wrong, immoral, and illegal" (39).

This part of the essay related well with the first chapter, when it was said that children quickly learn how to behave based on the people around them. Warnock states that she made her way through school by going along with what was expected of her, by pleasing her teachers with "correct" answers. She also stresses the importance of letting life write you rather than just writing  for life. She uses her mother's needlework as an example of the delicate dynamic between writing life and letting life write you. Warnock goes back to Burke to talk about the importance of revision and argues that he shows readers how to keep revising. She points out another important aspect of Burke's argument, which is comic perspective. But she challenges these ideas as well, bringing them into the classroom and pointing out the flaws that could occur.

My favorite part of her essay was where she went into her personal life and how writing has shaped her into the person she is. Rather than telling us about how she was lost and struggling in life until she found an outlet for herself in writing, she instead tells us that writing was always there and it was her who put it aside to care for her family.

Personal Essay

The seats were organized alphabetically, which normally wouldn’t have been a problem for me, but in this case, my sixth grade math teacher weaved my classmates and I up and down the room of desks, like columns. I landed in the front row, two seats down from the dusty projector and only a twitch of the eye away from his scrutinizing gaze.

Math was never my strong suite.

Short, old and unforgivingly blunt, Mr. Bean was adored by the rest of the class, and most of his former students. He’d been a staple at my middle school long before I arrived and was now just on the cusp of retirement. Even before school started, I was terrified of him. Stories about his class and the way I saw him strut around school, only about a foot and a half taller than us, made him out to be a teacher that took no nonsense and didn’t care how his students saw him.

 While my fellow classmates received nicknames like “Paintbrush” and “Sasquatch” for characteristics like hair and height, I tried my best to remain under the radar. After going over homework each class he would return to his desk, open his grade book, full of red marks and notes and begin to call out names.

“Brook Alenwick!”

“Two,” she answered, placing her pencil down beside her notebook. Even from my seat in the front, I could see how neat her homework was.

One by one my classmates responded with similar numbers—one, two, sometimes zero.

“Nickolas Lee!”

“Seven,” he replied, with a proud chuckle.

The class laughed, hard and loud, at his obvious stupidity while Mr. Bean made a mark into his grade book. Usually he made a comment, but instead he moved on to the next name.

“Samantha Perry!”

“Two,” I lied.

I wasn’t proud of my mistakes. I’d given up on getting the right answers early on in the class, instead watching intently as Mr. Been went over the more difficult questions, tracking my path to failure each time. In the beginning, it was easy enough to lie, to simply spit out what my classmates were saying so I wouldn’t become the next target for the class’s pent up laughter. Eventually, my test scores prompted Mr. Bean to come up with a new way of monitoring my progress.

“Andrew Zinc!”

“One.”

With the last name called and marked down in the book, Mr. Bean looked up, narrowing his eyes and pointing a stout finger at me before curling it back. Bringing my homework, void of the notes and doodles that were so often featured in the margins and free space, I trudged up to his desk, feeling the eye of every student on me. After handing over the notebook, Mr. Bean went through each question, marring the page with red slashes and x’s.

It was everything that I feared would happen to me while in his class. Not only had I failed to stay under the radar, I was the one my friends snickered at. I was the one that made the class laugh, so hard and loud, when I called out my number.

This class effectively stomped out my voice. Unlike Nick Lee, I wasn’t proud of myself or the way in which I could make the class laugh. I faded into myself to keep from being embarrassed, humiliated in front of the people that made up my whole world. This class instilled in me a fear, so deep that I struggle to this day, of answering questions and speaking up in class.

Over the years, the experiences with the good teachers have overpowered the memories of Mr. Bean. I have learned that my input is valued, even while I struggle to become comfortably enough to speak. 

"Whose Voice is it Anyway?"

In Ann Ruggles Gere's essay she argues that the voice of a writer has a lot of significance. "Authentic" is a way in which a writer's work is often defined or criticized, but Gere argues that authenticity can also stifle a writer's work as well. Authenticity is the comparison of one person's voice to the voice of authority. If that voice does not match up, the writer's true voice is made to be inferior and incorrect. Gere points out that students's voices are often ones that teachers set out to fix, which is basically the same as taking the writer's voice away all together. In Gere's opinion, a writer's voice develops based on their family history, their past and what has shaped them into the person they are. Without their own voice, writers are separating themselves from themselves in order to have a voice that matches what society wants.

I think Gere's argument relates directly to the process of healing. A writer cannot heal if their voices are stifled and the histories are made to be separate from the voice that society will accept. This idea goes back to the first chapter when it talks about soldiers struggling with PTSD. If a writer is not able to write in their own voice, their trauma will be harder to overcome because they are not part of a community that accepts their voice and their views.  I think this is what I found most compelling about this chapter. While we as writers are urged to find our own voice, certain voices are better than others and easier to accept. So, my question would be what are those "authentic" voices and how can we integrate more to allow for more healing?

Introduction

Throughout the Introduction, both Anderson and MacCurdy focus on one central idea: trauma is something we all suffer from. They go on to explain that in order to heal from traumatic events in our lives, we must find a way to explore and explain the circumstances to ourselves. Hashing out these traumatic experiences in more public settings is vital to a person’s healing process, but as Anderson and MacCurdy explain, there is a large amount of marginalization and stigma that surrounds this. Anderson and MacCurdy argue that trauma often separates individuals from their community, making them feel like the “other” or no longer “normal”. I believe Anderson and MacCurdy make it clear that the process of healing can happen only when a person is able to express their trauma, free of the fear of criticism and isolation. 

Writing offers up one of the best platforms for healing, allowing the writer to express their feelings to an unknown audience that, for the moment, remains silent and always listening. Healing continues when the piece of writing is read by someone else, someone who can respond and help the writer work out their feelings and develop their thoughts in order to truly understand their trauma. Anderson and MacCurdy use the term “re-externalization” to explain that memories of traumatic events are strong and always present because they are so hard to get over and an individual is only able to overcome these memories when they are able to transmit their story. Therefore it is impossible for a survivor to survive without telling their story. Anderson and MacCurdy sum up the relationship between writing and healing by saying: “Through the dual possibilities of permanence and revision, the chief healing effect of writing is this to recover and to exert a measure of control over that which we can never control—the past” (7).

What I found interesting about this reading was the way Anderson and MacCurdy looked at several different perspectives when talking about trauma. By seeing the argument through the lens of the struggling soldier, the young child and the alienated woman the pool of traumatic events and forms of healing also expanded. I also found it interesting that with each of these perspectives, a demand for new understanding emerged, creating change for medical treatment, feminism, and simply the dynamics of a classroom. One quote that stood out to me in the beginning of the reading talks about the marginalization that can occur when writing is part of the classroom. Anderson and MacCurdy say “the general inclination of our profession has long been to marginalize such disturbing texts in favor of safer, more controlled discourses of the academy” (2). As writers we are constantly told to write whatever we want and not care whether that thing is offensive or unlikable, but for the most part I think a lot of writers still take the audience’s opinion to heart. I’d like to talk about this more with the of view, and how they have come to understand their relationship to the audience.