My Discovery of Non-historic Sites: Making the Cut

My Discovery of Non-historic Sites: Making the Cut

Published March 19, 2018

After calling the State Historian’s office, I gained a bit of insight on the happenings in State Historic Site Landia.

El Camino Real Historic Trail:

First, there used to be a seventh historic site: El Camino Real Historic Trail Site. According to Deputy Historian Rob Martinez, the site recently closed because it was not making enough money from visitors to sustain itself. The state pays for a portion of the historic sites, but on some level, they need to maintain a percentage of their revenue. Since the trail was located a substantial distance from the highway, few visitors ventured out there.

What strikes me as interesting about this historic site is precisely what I saw in the others. Although it was a trading trail for indigenous groups before the Spanish commandeered it, The Department of Cultural Affairs still markets it with primarily Spanish Centric history–at least on the website: “Using a series of Native American footpaths used for trade between the indigenous people of Tenochititlán/Mexico City and Chaco, Spanish explorer Juan de Oñate “blazed” the northern portion of the trail into what is now New Mexico in 1598, and claimed the land for Spain.” The structure of the sentence alone subordinates the native history of the trail and gives privilege to Oñate with his exploration of a trail that was already well known.

We see this again in following paragraphs about the trail:

Discover the indigenous people encountered by the Spanish and the impact the arrival of the Spanish had on the formation of New Mexico. Remnants of the early journey remain today in hand-hewn carts, tools, leather water jugs, and religious altars and objects that accompanied the travelers into the northern territory.

Of course, given the charming nature of Oñate, we can expect the “encounter” was peaceable (that is sarcasm). In fact, Oñate is infamous for his unnecessary brutality against the natives. But the page fails to acknowledge the truth about history. It is an erasure of what happened–the same kind of eraser I saw in my history classes growing up. And while I cannot say that history has an ethicality or morality, certainly, the pieces left out here affect the Truth.

I am told that the visitor center is closed, but much of the trail is still accessible, including the plaques that accompany the historic site. Therefore, I would like to visit it over the next few weeks to discover if the onsite history is as bias as the website. I’ve already sent an email to request a tour. Wish me luck!

The Taylor Family Monument:

Martinez also informed me that the state is looking to acquire an additional historic site: The Taylor Family Monument. As of right now, the monument is still a family home and not open to the public. However, it is willed to the state once its current owner passes away. There seems to be at least some confusion about the historic site, the website owned by the Friends of the Taylor Family claim “The official dedication of the Taylor-Barela-Reynolds-Mesilla Historic Site (TBRM) took place in September 2006. As one of New Mexico’s eight Historic Sites, TBRM joins a special collection of culturally significant places. Each historic site tells a unique story that is important to understanding New Mexico history.” Another question to ask: Is it officially a historic site or not? If so, who decided?

Regardless, The home represents an important part of New Mexican history.

The Taylor home and two adjoining stores tell the story of settlement in the Mesilla Valley and a time when Mesilla was the center of political, commercial, and social activity in southern New Mexico. Events associated with the monument’s history include: the U.S. War with Mexico, the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo, and the Gadsden Purchase; the Confederate attempt to invade New Mexico during the Civil War; operation of the Butterfield Overland Mail Trail and Camino Real trade routes; and arrival of the railroad in New Mexico.

Without argument, the home is a symbol of the colonialism–but not Spanish colonialism like other historic sites. Instead, it represents American Colonialism. A war the United States provoked to gain land, a “treaty” which gave Mexicans living in the border states the “decision” to relocate or assimilate, and a resettling of borders in favor of building rail lines for the US. After All, these periods are what gained New Mexico statehood status.

While it is important to recognize–maybe even celebrate–the annexation of New Mexican territory, we cannot do so without acknowledging the physical and emotional displacement of the people who already lived here. The descriptions on the website fail to mention the people already living here when these pioneers settled in the Mesilla Valley in the 1850s. Furthermore, I am concerned about why we may have another state Historic Site, or perhaps we are acquiring another state historic site that represents the same populations and stakeholders already represented in the other 6.5 sites. Where is the representation of the Natives–both indigenous and Mexican?

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Selective History

Selective History

Published March 15, 2018

Selective History: The Politics of Designating New Mexico State Historical Sites

I consider myself well-educated. However, on topics of history, I am afraid I have been bamboozled. When I moved to New Mexico, I was blindsided by a side of history I’d never learned. Whole wars erased from my Midwestern History books. Whole groups of people vanished as though they never existed. I grew up with the impression that The West was empty land that somehow had never been explored prior to manifest destiny. Aside from the sparse indigenous people who lived here, it was free for the taking. We are especially proud of this where I came from. I grew up in Kansas City, home of the cattle train, train head to the west. Every year we celebrate the expansion of the west with Santa Cali Gon festival. My understanding of the American West was shaped through selection– a selection of representation in the texts, and selection of representation in Hollywood. Though who makes these choices, I cannot be sure. The idea that people make active decisions about the selection history fascinates me.

Then, driving to Taos with a friend, I marveled as we turned onto Cárdenas drive–A street named after her family who has lived there for hundreds of years–long before New Mexico was one of the “United” States. As I gawked at the beautify of the land and architecture of Taos, I kept telling me friends–both native New Mexicans, “You don’t get it, you don’t get it!” I did not understand why they were not dancing through the fields with me. Personally, I do not know what it is like to stand where my family has stood for generations. I also do not know what it is like to have your entire history erased.

Taos mountain from the view of the Cardenas kitchen

We passed her family hacienda–sold in her lifetime and renovated into a gift shop that sells high-end art and postcards with Mountain vistas. She told me her family could no longer afford the taxes on land they’d lived on for hundreds of years.

Toas is not as well-known for the native communities that have inhabited it for hundreds of years. As the final resting place for Kit Carson, it is in some ways a monument to the great conquistadors–conquerors that established “America’s foremost, bona fide Art Colony” and tamed the sacred mountains with “a world-class ski resort.” As a student of rhetoric, this amazes me. As a friend, it appalls me. New Mexico’s history is sold on the back of tourism. While my friends know the complicated and bloody history of the American Southwest, I am lost in a daze. That night, we walked around the city Plaza, and my friend gave me a ghost tour–so many people killed.

I sit in in literature classes, and I am the only one asking questions like “Who is Santa Ana?” Everyone around me has the colonization, war, and oppression stored in their minds, written on their family bloodlines. While I was telling my friends that they didn’t understand the beauty of their own land, I am the one who has no idea. I do the reading in class, but I try not to talk. I have come to the realization that my people–white people–are the ones who took everything. We wrote the history from the perspective of the conquers. Unfortunately, we are still erasing history. We see a beautiful mountain, and we colonize it with writers, authors, and ski resorts. I’ve found that I am learning a lot more in New Mexico than I anticipated.

In an effort to both better understand a history I never learned AND discover who makes decisions about selection of history, and I embarking on a tour of the New Mexico State Historic Sites. Already, I have some concerns about the representation of history. This week, I called the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs to ask if what I saw on the website is true.

There are only six New Mexico State Historic Sites:

Lincoln Historic Site (dedicated 1966). – “Walk in the footsteps of Billy the Kid, Pat Garrett, and other famous and infamous characters of the Wild West…Lincoln is a town made famous by one of the most violent periods in New Mexico history.”
Jemez Historic Site (dedicated 1973) – “Ruins of a 500-year-old Indian village and the San José de los Jemez church dating to 1621/2.”
Fort Stanton Historic Site (dedicated 2008)- “Established in 1855 as a military post to control the Mescalero Apache Indians”
Fort Selden Historic Site (dedicated 1974) – “Built on the banks of the Rio Grande, this adobe fort housed units of the U.S. Infantry and Cavalry. Their intent was to protect settlers and travelers in the Mesilla Valley from desperados and Apache Indians.”
Coronado Historic Site (dedicated 1976) – “Coronado was searching for the fabled Seven Cities of Gold. Instead of treasure, he found a dozen villages inhabited by prosperous native farmers…Conflict with Coronado and later Spanish explorers led to the abandonment of this site within a century of first contact.“
Fort Sumner Historic Site/Bosque Redondo Memorial (dedicated 1968) – where the “U.S. Army forcibly moved the Navajo and Mescalero Apache people from their traditional homelands to the land surrounding this lonely outpost is pivotal to the history of the American West.”

And despite being few, they already seem to tell an interesting tale of New Mexican history. The historiography of the west as presented in the selection of historic monuments is eager to create exciting experiences for “New” Mexicans. The State Sector calls out the reader like you might expect from the department of tourism.

“Explore History Where it Happened: New Mexico Historic Sites are storied places where the past is palpable. They invite you to hit the road, explore, and get out in the golden New Mexico sun. It’s your chance to follow in the footsteps of indigenous people, Spanish conquistadors, Civil War soldiers, outlaws, and lawmen.”

From the brief descriptions on the website, the only footsteps I can imagine are those clad in the boots of militant occupation. In general, I see gaps in the representation of minority populations and little celebration of the borderlands people.

Perhaps more troubling to me is that there is no known process for designating future sites, and no new sites have been designated in ten years. At the very least, there are no public documents about the selection process, and no one on staff at the Department of Cultural Affairs (who oversee the cites) knows how the process works.

Research Questions:

What time periods, events, and people does the state highlight in their selection of historic sites?
What time periods, events, and people are erased or skimmed over in the selection process?
What is the process for dedicating a State Historical Site? Who makes the decisions about its selection and Dedication?
What criteria is used to select state historic sites?

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Tar Babies

Published February 9, 2018

We swung from tree branches like apes, our shirtless bodies not girlish with breasts that might develop in a few years, but gangly–protruding ribs that lined our chests. We broke mirrors and jammed their fractured pieces into the bark–we created a wonderland where the trees nourished us alongside its leave with sunlight, and the sun bred fireflies that would have stood the Texas summer heat. We filled our stomachs with imaginary dishes and pretended we hosted cooking shows.

First pick the grass, then stir in the dirt, and wait ten minutes. Smell it to check if it’s right. It should have an Earthy smell.

I’d read the complete tales of Uncle Remus over and over again until I could recite the stories by heart. I lined up my stuffed animals for the performance: “I know it don’t seem right, since Br’er Possum didn’t have a thing to do with the disappearance of the butter. But that’s the way of the world. ” We filled the empty house by turning on music and dancing for hours. We filled the empty cupboards with paper dolls, with paper–written poems, written prayers–taped inside. The door swung open on display:

For every cup and plateful, Lord make us truly Grateful

We were always grateful–especially of each other. My sister and I held hands walking to the bus stop. At lunch, we slid those hands under the glass display and filled our pockets with cafeteria biscuits. They were the pirates gold that we’d survey together on the bus ride home. We never got caught. And we held hands walking back down the lost dirt driveway. At night, we would change into our pajamas, and put ourselves to bed. Even if we had two rooms, we always slept together.

We would play a game at as we intertwine our legs and lay really still, whispering so no one would hear. We built our nest out of blankets and pillows and huddled together. Our chipmunk mother would be home soon, but while we waited, we would plan the next day’s scavenging. we would collect and store our food to keep it safe for the winter. We would tuck cookies in our underwear drawers, and hide cheese in the heater vents. Our stashes did not always fair so well when dairy products began rotting in the vents of our mobile home.

We felt pain but didn’t know we did not know we were hungry.

That emptiness was just a part of being young, it left space for the joy and hope. It left room for romance. My hunger pangs fueled my imagination: Laying on the particleboard floor at nine years old gently touching my stomach. I’m pregnant. I smiled and hummed to her, caressing where I imagined her foot was pressing against the inside of my skin.

We didn’t fill our childhood sitting at the table learning manners. We never learned how to hold a fork properly, how to sit without wiggling. We became excellent readers, and fierce scrabble players. We learned to carve our names in the dirt, so that by the time we were twelve, we had the signature any 30-year-old would envy.

Somehow, we always knew the food would come. But being hungry for us, was believing in God. We never knew when or where, but it always came. And when it did, we celebrated: Canned spam pan seared in stewed tomatoes, a delicacy we read our in our books.

Most families celebrate around Christmas meals, but we celebrated around every meal. And Christmas was no different; we delighted in our cinnamon apples as we sat on a living room floor with no chairs. Just apples. Our mother’s hair smells like cinnamon.

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English 110 Sample Assignments

Published December 15, 2017

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If you’re reading this, you likely just got the job as a TA, and you’re about to start teaching college English for the first time (or you’re Todd about to give me a grade for whatever I say next.

First of all, you belong here. During my first semester, I struggled with feeling like I was right for the program. As I looked around, it seemed all of my colleagues were somehow smarter than me. I felt like an imposter about to walk into a classroom and pretend to teach. I wondered why I was even there. Just remember, the program is actually pretty competitive, and the department selected you because they wanted YOU. You are way smarter than you feel right now.

Second of all, do NOT take 12 credit hours. I made the mistake and thought grad school would be just like my undergraduate program. Between teaching and my classes, I never had time to sleep and had to take an incomplete in one course. Just take 6-9, and enjoy the ability to dig deeper into your work.

Now that all of that is out of the way, get hyped. Teaching is one of the most challenging and rewarding experiences.

The Challenge:

When I came into the program, I expected the English department to hold our hands and walk us through the process of teaching ENG110. There is virtually zero hand-holding. However, they give you the freedom to develop your curriculum and teaching style how you want to. You can teach how you love to learn. The hard part is sometimes you are not sure how you are going to create all of the assignments, teach them, grade them, and get your own work done. Then, you also have to worry about whether or not your assignments prepare your students for the portfolio at the end of the semester.

I strongly suggest you work BACKWARD while you are creating the curriculum. Have an idea at the beginning of the semester how you are going to prepare students for the portfolio throughout the semester. I also suggest putting together a collaboration team so you can develop the content together and relieve the individual burden of lesson planning. You’ll be surprised how much time you save by meeting for an hour once per week. You also get great ideas and reading materials from your peers.

Grading is a pain in the ass. If you set up your course as the department suggests, you’ll have to grade an assignment about every week. That’s around 12 hours of grading each week alone. Come up with a system that allows you to grade the SWAs quickly. Do not try to make a detailed rubrics for each of them. Keep it holistic, and give robust feedback instead–verbal feedback is faster and sometimes better. I even recommend having one SWA each unit graded on completion only, but have them use it as a draft to get peer feedback instead.

The Rewards:

Your class is the only one small enough where students create relationships with their teacher. Most of their classes are in huge lecture halls where there are too many students for the teacher to know who they are. They trust you and will come to you for advice. It means they also want to create connections in your class. Take advantage of it; make it a point to learn their names, and give them opportunities to learn about each other. Transparency is the healthiest ingredient for a safe and engaging community. Tell your students how you feel, what you want, when they exceed your expectations, and when they do not meet them. If you make their education a discussion, you’ll be surprised how much they want to be involved in their learning.

Your students will open up to you about things they have never shared. If you create opportunities to express themselves through the assignments, you will be humbled by their experiences. My students’ touching and heart-breaking stories made me cry. At first, they’ll be reluctant to share, nervous that their voices do not matter. After you share some of your own experiences, your students will open the trust gates and write works that amaze and inspire you. Let them know how their writing makes you make you feel special.

You might not feel like your students are learning anything. Sometimes, you will doubt your value–after a rough day in class, or after they utterly fail an assignment. Believe me, when they turn in their portfolios, you’ll feel amazing that you played such a pivotal role in how much they learned. In their final portfolios, my students gave me direct credit for the things they learned, and I was overwhelmed with to feel-goods.

In the end, you are not teaching them “English;” as much as you ae teaching them how to transition into a new life, a harder one. Approach them with love and compassion as they find their way, and you’ll leave a more significant impact than you could imagine. At the end of the semester, one of my students wrote the following passage in his portfolio:

There was so much more than just English learned in our class. We learned sympathy and compassion. The real value of a good conversation. The fact that everyone struggles sometimes and you can’t ever give up. We learned that vulnerability is a good thing and it creates a strong connection [between people]. I never thought in a million years that on the last day of my English 110 class that I would have such a strong connection with such an amazing teacher that it would be hard for me to leave that very classroom. A hug was not a goodbye or even a see you later; it was a thank you. A thank you for changing my view on literature and teaching me there is more in writing than just words. My very first experience of college was that very classroom, and it has affected me in a good way. I probably won’t remember a single thing about the course content itself when I graduate, but you can bet I will remember the vivid conversations, the funny jokes, and the awesome group of people who sat in room 212 with me at 10:00 am every Monday, Wednesday, Friday in my first semester of college.

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There are a few things you’ll notice set my syllabus apart:

I collaborated with my peers to offered their office hours.
I placed the departmental statement about civil disobedience at the top.
I offer students unlimited revision on Major Writing Assignments (MWAs).
Students are given absences for missing a conference.

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We used this for Sequence 2 MWA. This came after students interviewed a professional to learn about writing in their field.

Students reconceptualize genre in their professional lives.
Students see intersectionality of composition skills in their lives.
Students grapple with citing uncommon sources.
An easy and engaging way to introduce analysis.

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This mini-lesson uses social media to show students a quantifiable way to analyze audience. It reveals surprising habits and values (angles) for students to apply to their writing.

Discover audience statistics with Facebook analytics.
Know their jobs, salaries, education, hobbies, favorite stores and more!
Rewrite an article using information from the audience analysis.

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Sample Assignments

Published November 30, 2017

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English 120 builds on the rhetorical approach to composition introduced in English 110, 111/112, or 113 by asking students to create projects for particular audiences, contexts, purposes, and mediums. Students also extend their understanding of modes of communication by incorporating visual and audio elements to their compositions as appropriate to their audience.

English 120 emphasizes academic writing, research, and argumentation. Students must learn how to summarize, synthesize and evaluate primary and secondary sources for research before integrating them into an argument that engages their academic discipline.
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Student Learning Outcomes

Analyze, compose, and reflect on arguments in a variety of genres, considering the strategies, claims, evidence, and various mediums and technologies that are appropriate to the rhetorical situation
Use writing and research as a means of discovery to examine students’ personal beliefs in the context of multiple perspectives and to explore focused research questions through various mediums and technologies
Integrate others’ positions and perspectives into compositions ethically, appropriately, and effectively in various mediums and technologies

Overview

The purpose of this unit is to have students think about how their beliefs and experiences contribute to their writing. Students explain their core beliefs and explore how they were shaped. Students read various multi-media belief statements including UNM’s Lobo Common reader, Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson, and examine the difference between opinion and beliefs. They consider elements of organization and style to construct sounds definitions of their beliefs supported by anecdotes, imagery, and exposition. Finally, students choose an audience to whom they will explain their beliefs. They must revise their manifestos to meet the new rhetorical situation and consider how different audiences and mediums change their writing.
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Student Learning Outcomes

Integrate others’ positions and perspectives into compositions ethically, appropriately, and effectively in various mediums and technologies
Compose a research-based academic argument in one of various mediums and technologies by identifying, analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing sources, which must include secondary sources

Overview

The purpose of this sequence is to teach students how to conduct ethic research through a topic of their choice. Students explore a problem within their discourse community by developing questions about the problem. They learn how to navigate call numbers and online databases. Students also learn to evaluate the credibility and bias of a variety of sources. I ask students to suspend their own biases as they embark on their inquiry process. This annotated bibliography serves as the groundwork for the proposal in the third sequence.
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Student Learning Outcomes

Use multiple approaches for planning, researching, prewriting, composing, assessing, revising, editing, proofreading, collaborating, and incorporating feedback in order to make compositions stronger in various mediums and using multiple technologies
Use writing and research as a means of discovery to examine students’ personal beliefs in the context of multiple perspectives and to explore focused research questions through various mediums and technologies
Compose a research-based academic argument in one of various mediums and technologies by identifying, analyzing, evaluating, and synthesizing sources, which must include secondary sources

Overview

The purpose of this assignment is to teach students how to synthesize their research by proposing a viable solution the problem they highlighted in sequence 2. First, students consider all of the stakeholders in their problem and the values, stakes, and powers of each stakeholder. Then, they must outline a solution to the problem. Students select an audience for their proposal and make decisions about modes. As students complete their videos, podcasts, or presentations, they learn about how visual rhetoric enhances their message.
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Student Learning Outcomes

Analyze, compose, and reflect on arguments in a variety of genres, considering the strategies, claims, evidence, and various mediums and technologies that are appropriate to the rhetorical situation
Self-evaluate development as a writer over the course of the semester and describe how composing in multiple genres and mediums using various technologies can be applied in other contexts to advance students’ goals
Use writing and research as a means of discovery to examine personal beliefs in the context of multiple perspectives and to explore focused research questions through various mediums and technologies.

Overview

Students use a blog to document their learning journey throughout the semester. They complete weekly entries that allow them to explore what they are learning in a low-stakes, reflective space. As they do so, students comment and offer feedback to their peers, learn how to use various technologies, and incorporate design and various media into their portfolio.
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Teaching Manifesto

Published November 30, 2017

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Effective teaching environments create allow students the freedom to discover and advocate for themselves (bell hooks). They are driven by the curiosities and interests of the students.
Students learn best when they take control of their learning and make decisions about their education including learning objectives and assigned tasks (Rick Stiggins).
The unwillingness to approach teaching from a standpoint of race, sex, class, and gender is rooted in fear, and teachers cannot allow that fear to guide their pedogogical choices (bell hooks).
Grades should reflect student learning and growth, not averages of points. Robust feedback and continuous revision policies help students focus on their learning progress (Robert Marzano).
A teacher models their beliefs to the students in the classroom and in other spheres of influence.

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Composition deconstructs the meaning of “writing” to decentralize the power of academia and empowers the writer’s government of content, structure, form, and style (Cynthia Selfe).
Composition seeks to create an environment where students feel safe to question the attitudes, values, and ideas of themselves and others in order to engage in critical discussion about society and ethics (bell hooks).
Composition reinforces the connection between writing, reflecting and learning by asking students to write and reflect regularly on what they know, and what they need to know, and how they can learn (Peter Elbow).
Composition reflects on of the relationship between the writer, audience, message, exigence, and contextual factors and explores the consequences of changing any given factor (Cicero).

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Online classes, like face-to-face classes, require a level of personalization and presence. Students connect to the instructor and to eachother only when the instructor leads by example in creating community.
Online learner, while flexible, is not inherently more accessible than other learning modalities. A teacher must strive to know how to accomodate each student in their digital and e-learning literacies.
Both teaching and learning online are more time consuming and challanging than attending a class. The labor on the part of the student and teacher should be reconized.
Students deserve to see their teacher’s face and hear their teacher’s voice. Online learning is multi-modal

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Multimodality is practical: It enhances the functionality of the composition and the rhetorical agency of the writer (Jody Shipka).
Multimodality is fair: It increases the writer’s access to students’ available means–resources, audiences, proofs, and talents not often validated in traditional academic settings (Jody Shipka).
Multimodality is diverse: It legitimizes unlimited forms of critical composition that extend beyond text-based genres while acknowledging the different skills writers may draw upon to make meaning (Cynthia L. Selfe).
Multimodality is transferable: It requires writers to recognize the intersectionality of literacies across disciplines and sections of their lives (Michael-John DePalma).

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Online classes, like face-to-face classes, require a level of personalization and presence. Students connect to the instructor and to eachother only when the instructor leads by example in creating community.
Online learner, while flexible, is not inherently more accessible than other learning modalities. A teacher must strive to know how to accomodate each student in their digital and e-learning literacies.
Both teaching and learning online are more time consuming and challanging than attending a class. The labor on the part of the student and teacher should be reconized.
Students deserve to see their teacher’s face and hear their teacher’s voice. Online learning is multi-modal

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When we reinforce standard homogeny, we tell others how to measure themselves.

Hamilton, Missouri. Population 1,813. Quilt-town, USA. Where everyone is expected to go to church, attend football games, and extract wisdom from Romeo and Juliet read-alouds. Where JC Penney grew up, where he took inspiration from civil war uniforms to mass-produce clothing in standard sizes. Some people thrive in that, but others do not fit ready-to-wear clothing and curriculum.

I dropped out of high school the first semester of my junior year. While my commitment to learning helped me step on the bus every day, I couldn’t conform. I became estranged. My teaching philosophy stems from this estrangement. My identity as an outspoken, openly-gay female threatened everything my hometown stood for. I remember sitting on the floor in the counselor’s office in tears. Several college banners hung on the walls, and I thought about how I’d never make it to college. The path to college required passing through junior prom, then senior pictures, then graduation, and somehow a dorm room.

It has been a long journey figuring out who I am; I am winding in and winding out of various identities every day.

I am teacher. I am writer. I am student. I am queer women in heterosexual relationship. I am rhetorician. I am a wive. I am a dog mom. I am woman in the workforce. I am a first-generation college gradate. I am a quilter. I come from a long line of dairy workers.

Each identity faces different challenges expectations, but each contributes to how I learn and what perspectives I bring to the classroom as a teacher. My teaching allows students to take pride in their various identities and roles in their lives by asking them to examine themselves critically: how they value their literacy, what they want to accomplish, what communities they belong to, what they believe, what languages they speak, what life experiences have changed them.

Throughout my life, I’ve redefined my identity a number of times. I took on new hobbies and passions. I attached myself to new commitments or found myself in new states–new countries–new languages. But I do not think we know ourselves until we have had to face what we believe to be True. Students should question who they are.

We are not the job titles pinned to our shirts, nor the hobbies hidden under our beds, nor the accomplishments in our resumes. Our identity is constantly in turmoil because it is eventful and bound by the rhetorical moment, confined by fleeting audiences, and tethered to a particular cause or system of causes at any given moment. Each new situation in our lives calls us to adapt–play a different role, establish new ethos through discourse, relationships, and actions. It is difficult to write when we are out of touch with who we are.

I believe you cannot separate good writing from the self.

All writing should reflect who you are. I did not like my first-year composition classes because I thought the purpose was simply to practice writing. We wrote in three basic modes: analysis, argument, and exposition. My argumentative paper was over an issue I randomly selected. My analysis banal. My exposition disconnected from anything important to me. I did not understand how to select topics and genres that reflected the beliefs and interests important to who I was.

Every day, I ask my students to reflect on what they know about themselves: what they value, what they want, what they need. They select topics that explore their belief systems and write proposals within their communities. When students see how their writing connects with their daily lives, they begin to invest in the craft of writing as a tool for living. I ask them to research issues in their field of study, and I teach them citation styles specific to their majors because I believe a teacher’s first job is to help students be agents for themselves.

When we teach students how to meet our expectations, we are not teaching leadership and innovation. Despite what we know about teaching and learning, prevailing pedagogical models in the university reinforce a hierarchy that validates the authority of the teacher and invalidates the experience of the students. Students read what we tell them to read and write what we tell them to write, yet we complain when they do not feel comfortable to speak up in class discussions.

I ended this last semester engaged in a conversation with 20 freshman composition students who asked me, “why doesn’t school teach us what we need to learn to be successful in life outside of academia?” I could not answer that question. I could not explain why they still sit in rows and learn the same time-honored curriculum as their grandparents–one that teaches them few practical adult survival skills, nothing about their personal interests, and little about their intended careers. When I asked my students whose job it is to speak out for change, they told me they did not have the authority to have a voice. If student’s do not have the authority to speak about their experiences, who does?

My pedagogical philosophy creates a space where students are given classroom authority. Students select their own learning goals, build rubrics, lead discussions, and make decisions about due dates. bell hooks, American author, feminist, social activist, and teacher says highlighting student experiences without privileging our own “helps create communal awareness of the diverse experiences that may inform how we think and what we say…makes the classroom a space where experience is valued, not negated or deemed meaningless” (84). But we can only teach students to value their expression when we engage in dialogue with them and give merit to their ideas. I have learned that when teachers acknowledge the validity of students’ experiences and allow students to take leadership roles, the teacher also grows and learns from the varied perspectives.

To give our students the power of voice, we have to teach them make critical decisions for themselves. We must first stand beside them to help the discover what they want to accomplish (purpose), who can help them (audience), the obstacles (context), the opportunities (angle), and the importance of timing (kairos). We stop teaching them to write to assignment prompts and focus on writing to contingent rhetorical situations. We cannot pretend to know the future by teaching them skills they may never need. This approach renders us “incapable of saying anything pertinent or giving any counsel regarding the present” (Isocrates “Against the Sophists”). We can only teach them how to analyze their particular situation to make informed choices. If my students understand the stakes of their decisions–they are proud to take ownership of their actions. Nothing gives me more pride than instilling a sense of personal obligation in my students to do what is right for them.

But how do we teach them to live in a world full of contingencies and unknowns when we assess them by our set standards? While I have not figured out how to reconcile the tepid climate of institutional education and my disdain for formal grades, I fight for my students to understand that grades do not define them. Grades do not even recount what they know. Grades are a systemic and systematic way to categorize students and compare them against one another. When every student is different, grades teach them to define themselves on our terms–the terms of academia, the terms of bureaucracy and the terms of capitalism. It reinforces the false notion that some of us are better than others.

I fight for the true definition of assessment–a snapshot for the purpose of viewing the moving components of learning (Rick Stiggins). Sometimes students “fail” because they are struggling to work through their ideas, and I value that process.

I spend massive amounts of time offering writing feedback and very little amount time justifying grades.
I work hard to make sure their grades reflect their learning, and I offer unlimited opportunities for revisions.
I encourage students to explain their decisions by any means possible rather than requiring needless tasks.
I do not give Fs to students who come to class and turn something in–even if it’s just a sentence.

Reflection is the only true assessment that brings students a clear path to growth.

Finally, I believe I have the specific obligation to model my beliefs.

Teachers do not have to luxury of maintaining their authority simply for the opportunity to interact with students, not even for the ability to mold students into good readers and writers. Teachers must first be models in their beliefs and expectations. We do not have to luxury of separate personal and professional lives.

I believe in the power of failure; therefore I must reflect openly on my failures in daily life and how I grow from them.
I believe everyone represents the best version of themselves when they understand their position in time and space. Therefore, I must always question my position– my strengths, weaknesses, and authority at a given moment.
I believe students grow from reflection and feedback, so I must create a classroom dynamic where students feel comfortable giving me feedback.
I believe students should constantly remind themselves why what they are doing is worth their time. So I must never lose sight of why I am here–to love my students to greatness.

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Give me Energy

Give me Energy

Published May 8, 2017

Yesterday I stood in line with Luisa waiting to have her schedule approved at the University. I stood in this same spot with her last year in August, and we hopped line to line, laughing in frustration at the inefficiency of the system.

I recall it taking a full day to register for classes, have them approved, and pay for them. With no data attached to my phone, and with the looming danger having nice electronics stolen, last year I sat in line bored, unable to talk, and hungry. I entertained myself by talking to Luisa and wondering what the people around us thought of my presence: a strange girl at the local university who couldn’t speak Spanish.

I was parallelized by the fear of walking 12 steps away to a shop selling sandwiches. Despite my hunger, Luisa was prodding me to ask for sandwich: “me vendes un sándwich por fiz.” She stuffed bills in my pockets, repeating the phrase over and over, nudging me. Be Brave. But I couldn’t do it. I handed the money back to her and asked her to step out of line to do it for me. When she came back, I was disappointed in her for not thinking to buy water. And I was disappointed in myself for not stepping up to ask for my own food. Is not that the basic skill of survival?

Yesterday, After staying up late, and standing at a street corner for 45 minutes waiting for a bus with standing space, we were tired. Luisa mentioned how maybe a Gatorade would provide her with the energy to enduring the stupidity of the waiting process. I was just bored.

I scanned the area looking for anything to relieve us, and I saw a store across the street. “Wait here,” I told Luisa. “I am going to go get us something to drink.”

When I approached the old woman running the 40 square-foot storefront, she greeted me the way it is customary in Colombia. When they say hello, they do it three times. When they say goodbye, they say it 5 times: “Buenos dias! Bienvenido. A la orden.” Her skin a lovely golden brown, and her voice both soft and harsh. Good morning! Welcome. I’m at your service if you need anything.

I asked her if she had drinks, and she pointed me to glass shelf which displayed the 6-8 options–not like the 50 choices in a US convenience store. Of the few options, half of them were juice. Not high-fructose corn syrup juice, real juice with sugar and water. For me, an apple juice box sounded good, and I got an energy drink for Luisa. I asked the woman how much I owed her and was surprised to hear only 1200 COP, the equivalent of about $1.40. I tucked my change in my pocket and wandered back to Luisa, who had advanced one place in the line since I left.

While I knew I did not want the energy drink, I offered her both drink options out of courtesy, and she left me with the apple juice. She offered me a sip, and I obliged, even knowing I hate energy drinks. They are syrupy and overly sweet. Their intense carbonation burns my nose, and they leave a sugary coating on my teeth. I took a sip anyway, and was surprised to find that it was quite different from what I expected. Yes, sweet, but not like drinking kids candy. Slightly effervescent, and citrusy. Certainly, nothing to make me cheat on my apple juice, but better than I’d thought.

I plunged my straw into the box and sipped away carelessly reflecting on the ease of my purchase. Just a year ago in nearly this same location, I was too paralyzed to buy a sandwich. Now, the act seemed natural: When you want something, go buy it. I not only learned the minimum vocabulary to make a purchase, I learned courtesy of saying hello and goodbye, how to tuck my cash away in the store before I stepped foot into the street to be safer, and how to entertain myself in line by talking to people I never could before.

When we got all the paperwork finished, we took a bus back to the house. Buses are so full in Bogota, that you are considered lucky to get a seat. We made due by sharing a seat on the way back. As we did, I realized how much I have truly changed in the last six months. Not just my accent nor my experience, but I am a braver person than I ever thought I would be. Of course, it does not require much bravery to order a sandwich or ask for some drinks. But those little braveries led to big ones, like traveling to Peru by myself and climbing Machu Picchu. Boarding buses to unknown cities for the sake of adventure.

It’s been a hell of and adventure, and I am proud of how far I have come.

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Ashes, Ashes

Ashes, Ashes

Published March 15, 2017

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Your children’s games of holding hands, skipping–

We ring around the rosey and you marvel at the way centripetal force pulls heavy on our legs.

Your laughs are contagious. Everyone want to join.
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They rally to the cause smiling. Laughing

You’ve fistfuls of posies in your hands, in your pockets,

spreading the fragrance and smearing it in our noses.
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I once admired your energy and spirit, held you up as my friend, prevented you from falling.

But you were too afraid to tell me you didn’t want me to play.

But I am already in your backyard.
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I am the kindergarten teacher?

YOU are a boy, but you are not innocent.
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Brother Underwood

Brother Underwood

Published February 8, 2017

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When I was a little girl, I used to love going to church. Our pastor was named Brother Underwood, and he was a warm soul. He would touch our little faces as we walked in on Sundays and called us by name. his hands smelled of lilac lotion and felt warm on my face.

One day in Sunday school he called all the kids to the front pew for a special lesson that I’ll never forget. He handed us all toothpicks and Q-tips, and squeeze toothpaste from a tube. “Try to put it back” he challenged. His words never raised above a whisper. It drew us in, like a secret. None of the adults in the room would hear his message.

We each got a turn scraping the toothpaste with our tools. Each of us was sure we would be the victor. We couldn’t.

Once you say something, once you do something, you can never take it back.

No apology will ever repair all future doubts. No excuses can repair disappointment.
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Sick of Being Sick

Sick of Being Sick

Published January 23, 2017

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These lungs sputter like a car running low on fuel.

My exhaust fumigating, contaminating the precious air.

Just Breathe.

I can’t Breath! This chest backfires, coursing microexplosions.

Convulsing.

Violent, like blood smeared highways. Thick liquid.

Unfamiliar taste.
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