In the Company of Writers 2004

Copyright © 2006 by Ronald A Sudol

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Credit for Graphics: Cliff Lawson, CAD Design Enterprises

Photo Credits: Warren W. Spencer and Ralph Schick. Chapter 4: Lewis W. Hine: Photograph used by the kind permission of the publisher, Philip Gavin, Child Labor in America 1908-1912, The History Place. www.historyplace.com.

ISBN-13: 978-0-595-39163-9

ISBN-10: 0-595-39163-X

ISBN 978-1-4697-9066-4 (ebook)

Printed in the United States of America

Contents

Acknowledgments

Forewords

I am a writer!

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 1 6

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

Afterword

ENDNOTES

Acknowledgments 

Thank you to the teacher/writer contributors for permitting the publication of their 2004 summer writing pieces.

Without the combined spirit, humor, camaraderie, intellect, expertise, positive energy of Director Ron Sudol, Co-director Mary Cox, Associate Directors John Callaghan, Catherine Haar, and Kathleen Reddy-Butkovich, plus Technical Liaison Marshall Kitchens, the success of the In the Company of Writers 2004 would not be possible. The Fellows laud the efforts of this special academic group to motivate us to become better teachers of writing and better writers.

The computer expertise and countless hours of the editor, Ralph Schick, and the editing, graphics, and publishing expertise of Kathleen Lawson, in compiling this volume are greatly appreciated. A special thanks to the coeditor, Warren Spencer, for his creative and collaborative efforts. To Cliff Lawson, a special thank you for the gifts of his time and talents as a designer and permission to use his graphics.

Thanks also go to Director Adelaide Phelps; Circulation Manager, Karen Reeves; Technical Advisor, Homa Roshanaei; and catalogers, Kristi Schultz and Liping Shih, of the Oakland University Educational Resource Laboratory in Pawley Hall, as well as the Kresge Library staff for assisting Writing Project fellows with courteous professionalism throughout the 2004 Summer Institute.

Kudos to visiting authors Ron Cramer, Clark Iverson and Deborah Wile for sharing their enthusiasm and talent.

The steady support and encouragement of family, friends and colleagues is gratefully acknowledged and appreciated by fellows, directors, and staff.

Students from the various school districts represented are praised for welcoming the innovative ideas from the Fellows’ Oakland University experiences which were implemented in classrooms for all academic levels.

We appreciate and acknowledge the collaborative spirit of all involved in the Meadow Brook Writing Project and In the Company of Writers 2004!

Forewords

The Meadow Brook Writing Project (MBWP) at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan is one of 189 National Writing Project (NWP) sites that conduct an annual five week summer institute to help teachers become better writers. The model that is used is based on the philosophy that teachers can best teach other teachers to become better writers and in turn help their students become better writers.

In the summer of 2004, teachers from throughout Southeastern Michigan met at Oakland University’s Pawley Hall to become better writers. The heart of writing is to develop each person’s unique voice so that their personality is apparent in their writing. This is no small task. Nationwide, writing skills are lacking in all levels of education. New curriculums promote structured writing processes but our teachers must deliver these curriculums in an engaging manner so that students can themselves develop robust writing skills.

I was indeed fortunate to be able to spend five weeks with teachers from the Detroit metro area to share, engage, connect, and most of all write. The MBWP was truly a transforming experience made possible by our coaches and mentors Mary Cox, John Callaghan, and Kathleen Reddy-Butkovich. Professor Ron Sudol and Professor Ron Cramer also provided key insights on the essence of writing and the importance of developing your writing voice.

Teaching is a reflective profession. I have had the opportunity to reflect at length during the past year on the empowering experience of the Meadow Brook Writing Project and I am a better person and a better writer thanks to the dedicated, thoughtful peers and professors who made the MBWP a life changing experience for me. I use the methods I learned during the Meadow Brook Writing Project Summer Institute in my daily teaching practice to help

my students find and develop their own voice and to take the risk themselves to become fluent, expressive writers.

Thank you, all.

Ralph Schick

I am a writer! 

I am a writer! Read separately, four simple words. And, yet, spoken together as an informed declaration, incredibly daunting. Could we learn to say these words with conviction, confidently, matter-of-factly, minus pretense or sarcasm? Could we own these words free from judgment of others and ourselves?

To discover and voice our separate and collective answers, together we tripped out over words and writing for a unique literary journey during the summer of 2004. From late June through July, 19 Fellows drove to the Oakland University campus from many areas in Southeastern Michigan to participate in this chapter of the federally funded National Writing Project. We were a diverse group of teachers by race, gender, age, and teaching experience.

We greeted each other initially as educators seeking to locate and develop a voice within; a month later, we said farewell as compatriots and, most importantly, as a family of friends. We wrote, we read, we listened, and we spoke. We thought about our ideas, experiences, and our unique understanding of language. We learned from and taught each other. We critiqued, disagreed, challenged, questioned, congratulated, and always, supported one another through an affirming process of self-discovery. We wrote bios for the Writing Project Homepage.

We shared stories of Saints and Sinners, ghosts in New Orleans, treasured photographs, pet iguanas, endangered wolves, infirm spouses, distant whip-poorwill’s sons, the meaning of our first names. We jotted quick writes and wrote in our journals. We rediscovered poetry. We encouraged each other through tight deadlines. For a final project, we each gave an in-depth presentation. We broke bread together throughout the month-long session.

We left equipped to cope better with our individual educational destinations because of these special experiences together. We enjoyed, and then missed, being in the company of writers. Finally, we reassemble in the following pages in order to share our words with you, the readers. Enjoy. Think. Feel. Ponder. But, most of all, write!

John J. Jeffire and Warren W. Spencer

CHAPTER 1 

Kathleen Reddy-Butkovich

New Day

Rooflines control the look of sunrise. Edged by light, rows of bungalows stand like empty church pews waiting for morning. Shadows slant and fade.

Open windows invite more than point of view. Insistent lavender—uncut urged only by a dance of wind wakes the weary.

Summer’s Stock Prop

One straw hat on a brass hook hints of a still life, a season

of non-speaking parts. Cue the player. Light the scene. Grab the hat.

Forestalled

Is it only from a distance—in flashback—that we enlarge The sense of what was possible? Words are both burden and gift. The vibrations of people on paper Lamenting the ticking of childhood, The velocity of aging, Recklessly stimulating heart and nerve. Beware. There are poets in your coffee house.

Seven Ways of Looking At Directions

I

We left on our own,

Before the Pied Piper arrived in Hamlin Humming our father’s tune.

II

Navigating by telltales, The wind tutored the sailor. Her stories grew more apparent.

III

Doing the hokey pokey on roller skates. Entertaining troops. Is that What it’s all about?

IV

On the way to confession—Don’t fall in love with a priest.

V

Proceed with caution: The tripwire is hidden In a basement box.

VI

Children playing

On a seesaw, experimenting

Find the point of balance.

VII

You have the same Twenty six choices. Imagine.

CHAPTER 2 

Mary Cox

The Furniture Wars

Artimus Johnson liked waxing the floors. He liked slowly moving the big waxer in concentric circles in a continuous movement. Round and round from one end to the other, covering every inch and leaving a wide swath of polished floor. He liked the vibrations of the machine that ran up his arm causing a tingling sensation. Sometimes he let the machine choose the course.

He wore his head phones and hummed along to Barry White. The best thing Artimus liked about this job was that he was alone. The school was empty, and he was the only one on the floor, and that’s why he stopped suddenly when he caught a movement out of the corner of his eye.

Chair, his brain said before his eyes could focus. He squinted at the end where the hall crossed with another. It was empty. He took his glasses off and held them up to the light, then pulled his shirttail out of his pants and scrubbed his glasses with it. He put his glasses on and looked again. The space was empty. He shrugged and continued to move the waxing machine around. Then, there it was again, a black flash in the corner of his eye. His head snapped up. Nothing, the hall was empty. He frowned, turned off the machine and stomped down the hall.

At the corner he looked to the left. Nothing. He looked to the right, and rolling down the hall was a Spangle 500 pneumatic slide, lumber support, automatic lift, easy roll desk chair. He stared, trying to comprehend. As he glowered at the back of the chair—the smooth rolling wheels were leaving three parallel lines on his newly waxed floor—the seat began to turn. Seated deep in the chair, and peddling his way down the hall, was the new track coach. He placed his finger on his lips and signaled Artimus to be quiet, then waved as he rolled around the corner out of sight.

Artimus went back to his waxing machine. He was angry because he knew chairs were not supposed to move down the hall.

It’s a damn roller derby around here. He turned up Barry, turned on the machine and refused to be drawn in when the third chair cruised by.

Artimus Johnson had no sense of humor. He never got the punch lines to jokes, and slapstick made him feel bruised and achy. Perhaps it was his childhood experiences that made his funny bone atrophy. Whatever the reason, he never approved of tricks or games and took everything very seriously. It was because of this that he began to give serious thought to the return of the chairs.

The physical education office was two levels below sea level. It smelled of chlorine, disinfectant and an occasional whiff of unwashed gym clothes. It was part of the boy’s locker room behind a large glass window that was streaked with years of unidentifiable substances.

Team pictures, hanging at various angles, of helmeted and uniformed young men, first row sitting, second row kneeling, and the others standing, looking seriously or fiercely at the camera, were vaguely discernible through the murky glass. Three desks filled the small space. One was completely empty, cleared of all paper work, files, and books, due to the fact that the owner had learned the art of delegation. Anything that came his way, he immediately delegated to one of his assistant coaches. The other two desks contained tall, teetering piles of folders, stacks of unread papers from the Writing Across the Curriculum push the year before, physical exam forms from the freshman class, broken pieces of athletic equipment, a red Speedo, a jock strap, several dirty coffee cups, and food in various stages of decomposition.

Crowded behind each desk, making the space seem even smaller, was a state of the art, Spangle 500 pneumatic slide, lumbar support, automatic lift, easy roll desk chair. All three of which were occupied at the moment. The nice thing about the pneumatic slide was that it lifted the chair high enough to make it possible for the occupant to lean back and put his feet up on the desk, which was