Senior Citizens Writing

Description

In Senior Citizens Writing, renowned teacher and writer W. Ross Winterowd describes in his introduction how writing workshops for seniors not only provide an audience but also give them opportunities for the intellectual growth and engagement that everyone wants and needs. Included in this anthology are new poems, stories, and essays by workshop participants.

Informations

• Publié par: Parlor Press, LLC
• Date de parution: 07 janvier 2007
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781602354043
• Langue: English

Extrait

Also by W. Ross Winterowd
Searching for Faith: A Skeptic’s Journey
The Uses of Grammar (with Judith Rodby)
Contemporary Rhetoric: A Conceptual Background With Readings
The English Department: A Personal and Institutional History
The Contemporary Writer
The Rhetoric of the “Other” Literature
Composition/Rhetoric: A Synthesis
The Culture and Politics of Literacy


Senior Citizens Writing
A Workshop and Anthology, with an Introduction and Guide for Workshop Leaders
W. Ross Winterowd
Parlor Press
West Lafayette, Indiana
www.parlorpress.com


Parlor Press LLC, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906
© 2007 by Parlor Press
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America
S A N: 2 5 4 - 8 8 7 9
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Winterowd, W. Ross.
Senior citizens writing : a workshop and anthology, with an introduction and guide for workshop leaders / W. Ross Winterowd.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-1-60235-000-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-60235-001-4 (adobe ebook)
1. Autobiography. 2. Older people’s writings, American. 3. Aging--Literary collections. I. Title.
CT25.W56 2007
808’.06692--dc22
2006035870
Printed on acid-free paper.
Cover and book design by David Blakesley
Cover images © 2006 by Dar Yang Yan. Used by permission.
Thanks to Megan Wellman for providing copy editing assistance on this project.
Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multimedia formats. This book is available in paperback and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press on the Internet at http://www.parlorpress.com . For submission information or to find out about Parlor Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail [e-mail].


Preface
Without the support of the Huntington Beach Union High School District administration and staff, the writing workshops that I have been conducting for the last five years would have been impossible. Dr. Doris Longmead, principle of the Coast High School and Adult School, has been unfailing in her support.
Three members of the school’s staff have been invaluable allies, not only in providing logistical support, but also in supplying me with good cheer and wise guidance. I look forward to my weekly meetings with Lynne Bergman, an always reliable and ever-cheerful adjutant; June Stark-Karaba, whose stylishness is exceeded only by her sunny nature and efficiency; and Georgina “Gina” Amparan, who keeps me on schedule by plugging the gaps in my seventy-six-year-old memory and unfailingly supplying me with necessities, such as supplementary materials that I have prepared and that she reproduces.
My boss in the workshop endeavor is Catherine McGough, assistant principal at the school. For three decades, Cathy and I have been friends and colleagues, working with the school district first on “Project Literacy,” a successful effort to improve students’ skills in written language, and now with our ongoing work to give senior citizens an audience for their writing.
Ever with us, sometimes in person but always in spirit, is Norma Winterowd. After suffering a disastrous stroke in 1999, she went on to survive a series of health crises, and she still prevails, giving all who know her the bounty of her love.
—W.R.W.


Contents
Preface
Introduction: Senior (Citizen) Composition
W. Ross Winterowd
The Sermon as Cop-Out
Michelle Barany
Homeward (Excerpt)
Into the Night of Time
Rooftops
Robert Barany
A Widow’s Validation
Coal Camp Entertainment
Mail-Order Bride, et al.
Bud Brower
Morning Tour [pronounced “tower”]
Irene Clifford
Andy
Royal L. Craig
Fishing
Interstices
Gerry Gooding
Governing by Direct Democracy
Our Cuban Prison
The Shady Spot
Vi Hinton
VJ Day in Aruba
Mary Jenkins
1931–1932
1932–1935
1935–1937
1937–1940
Paul Sammy Larkin
The Transition—Summer 1940—Springfield, MO, to Amory, MS
Larkins’ First Rental Home In Amory
605 7 th Avenue North, Amory, MS
Various Memories
Anna Pinter
Summer Evenings of My Childhood
Going Home
The First House My Dad Built
Forgiving Father
Art Weiland
Hats
My Dad
Free Flight I
First Love
Contributors


Introduction: Senior (Citizen) Composition
W. Ross Winterowd
Since 1997, I have been conducting writing workshops for senior citizens. During those years, I have learned a great deal more than have the participants in the workshops.
Statistics demonstrate that the proportion of seniors in our population is burgeoning and will continue to do so, with the result that colleges and universities have a new pool of prospective students who continue to grow intellectually and are eager to tell their stories, explain their philosophies, create fictions, and vent their anger at the injustices they perceive in the nation and the world. In other words, many seniors want to write. If they serve no other purposes, writing workshops give participants a stimulus for writing and an audience for their work. 1
The Philosophy of Composition
As some readers of this volume know, I have during my career argued against what I have called the Romantic philosophy of composition, represented most notably by Peter Elbow. This Romanticism emphasized expression over form; it advised students to look inward and find the stuff of discourse in their own beings; it stressed an undefined something called “voice” over style.
I believed, and I still believe, that the purpose of expository writing courses (i.e., “composition”) in colleges and universities is to prepare students to enter the world of academic discourse, with the ability to explain processes and ideas clearly, to argue cogently and rationally, and to adapt to the forms demanded by the various disciplines. It was obvious to me that the Romantic philosophy of composition would shortchange students, and research validates my critique. 2
However, much of the “Romantic” doctrine of composition applies necessarily, I think, to the writing of senior citizens in workshops. With their careers behind them, they want primarily to express themselves, not, certainly, in gushes of nostalgia or laments about the present, but in ways that they had no time, need, or motive for during their lives as engineers, lawyers, teachers, carpenters, plumbers, and mainstays of families. They write memoirs, of course—but also novels, philosophical musings, political arguments (and diatribes), explanations of technical and scientific processes and concepts, and humor. As my explanation of the workshops will make clear, there are no assignments, except “Write!”
Instruction: A Community of Writers
The verb “teach” does not apply to the writing workshop, but the nouns “feedback” and “response” do characterize most of the “instruction” that takes place. The whole dynamic of the workshop is a community of writers responding to the writing of their colleagues. Hereafter, I will explain the mechanics of this process. The important concept is this: readers ( sans PhDs in English!) can rapidly become skilled responders to texts, providing the rich feedback that enables writers to revise a text and to gain skills that transcend this or that given text. In other words, the workshop writers as readers “teach” one another the abilities needed for success. The workshop leader is a facilitator and responder, almost never a teacher in the traditional sense.
The “pedagogical method” of the workshops is simply to provide rich feedback on writers’ texts. I encourage participants to make notes on the texts as they read them so that discussion can be focused. Frequently, but not always, a reader-participant will give his or her annotated copy of the text to its author. I take part in the discussions during each session, but I also distribute a handout that contains what I hope are constructive remarks on each piece of writing that has been submitted. (See Appendix for an example of my handouts.)
Voice: Style/Mechanics
In the academy, in businesses, and in the professions, writing “mechanics” count for a great deal. Orthography is next to godliness. Faulty agreement of pronouns with antecedents and verbs with subjects is a mortal sin. In the writing workshops, however, we play the game without the net of mechanical correctness. More accurately, we contextualize mechanical correctness. Within our circle, it makes no difference whether the tuber is spelled potato or potatoe, whether it’s differance or difference. None of us gasp or sigh when we read “one of the problems were. . . .”
Exaggerated concern with mechanical correctness can bring the free flow of writing to a drip-drip-drip.
When a writer decides to submit a text to an audience outside our group, mechanical correctness does sometimes count, and the writer needs to clean the text up, perhaps with the help of someone who can spot and eliminate the gaffes.
Style in terms of sentence structure is quite another matter. Readers can ignore mechanical lapses, but they must mentally process the writer’s sentences. Syntax is, to be sure, a matter of the esthetics of writing, but more than that, it can make texts either difficult or easy for readers to process. (In other words, style is in large part a concern of psycholinguistics.)
I can demonstrate this principle with the following two sentences: