As we begin working towards our final projects, it might be useful to think about the relationship between language and world in terms of the stories we tell-- stories about ourselves, about our families, about other people. What are the stories we tell and what do they mean? Most crucially, to examine the relationship between language and world means to think about how the stories we tell ourselves make us think, feel, and act towards other people and in the world around us.
We should also think about the differences between the stories we tell and the reality of our world. As an example of this, remember our discussion of Oleanna: a number of us told stories of women falsely accusing men of sexual harassment and rape and hence ruining the lives of the innocent men falsely accused. In our discussion, almost everybody was angry with Oleanna's charge of attempted rape; Mamet's story hence fueled the cultural story of "men falsely accused." But, if we do a bit of research about rape, for instance, the statistics show us that, of all the rapes reported and for which their is medical evidence to prove rape, very few of those cases actually go to trial. And, of the cases that go to trial, very few are actually convicted. From this we can conclude that most actual rapes are never tried nor are most rapists convicted. Given this, we, we might wonder why the story of the falsely accused man is told so much more, with much greater frequency and emotional ferver, than the story of the rapist who goes free. Why does Mamet tell this story in this way, and how does the story affect the audience's perception of the larger world and the people in it?
Even more tellingly-- our dicussion of Oleanna kept the stories of sexual harassment and rape gender specific. That is, we did not discuss men who are sexually harassed, men who are raped, or the fact that most men that are raped are raped by other men. What does *NOT* telling these stories tell us? If it is difficult in our culture for women to tell their stories of rape, it is virtually impossible for men to do so-- why is that?
Beginning from this kind of questioning of the stories we tell, we'll make a list of points that we would need to get more iformation about in order to really understand the way our story works in our culture. For the Oleanna example, I might want to find statistics on the number of rapes reported in Georgia in the last 5 years, the number for which charges were dropped and the accusation rescinded, the number tried, and the number convicted. I might also want to analyze these cases by gender, as well as to read Georgia's legal definition of rape. I would probably want to review some of the controversy of legal definitions of date rape and the ways in which our laws are in the process of changing. This research might make me see stories of rape in a more complicated light, so I might also want to interview some of my classmates to see how the stories they tell of rape match up with what I have been finding out in my research. Maybe I could find out how many inmates in Georgia jails are serving time for rape and what percentage of the inmate population this is. If I were to do this, I would also want to analyze this data for gender and race; that is, what is the percentage of women, black, white, hispanic, asian, etc., inmates?
There are hundreds of ways that you can enter this project, and I want you to find one that is meaningful to you. Quite literally, I want you to start by picking out a story that is important to you in your life. Here's another example: My mother flew civil patrol planes during the second world war, and, on a dare, flew her plane under a bridge in Louisianna. (I do not remember the name of the bridge.) I heard very few stories of my mother's past, but this was one that my family told several times throughout my life. This story gave me a language for seeing myself in my world: women in 1940 did not, by and large, fly planes, and my mother's plane-flying provided me with a story of female courage, risk, bravery, accomplishment; it allowed me to see possibilities for myself as a woman being similarly courageous. To fly under a bridge, on a dare, was a story of adventure, an Indiana-Jones hero narrative, which gave me the language for being a hero. This was an extremely important story, especially as so many stories in my life and world told me that, as a woman, I could not be adventurous, strong, brave, daring. Certainly, this story of my mother flying planes helped me to overcome a great deal in my life, to get into college, to go to graduate school, to work as a social and political activist for civil rights in my community.
If I were going to use this story as a beginning point for my final project looking at the relationship between language and world, I might begin by interviewing my mother and finding out how she became involved in flying, exactly where she flew and when and why she stopped. Adding to what I have written here, I might freewrite about when I heard the story, who told it, who was present, what its effect on us was at the time, how we thought about the telling of it, how often we repeated it, under what circumstances... in short, everything I could remember about the story.
I'd also want to do some research: I could find out the name of the bridge she flew under and research that. I might want to capture a picture of the bridge and include this on my website. I would certainly want to know something about the history of women flying civil patrol planes in the second world war. For instance, I would want to know when the first women's civil patrols were organized, by whom, and why? How did women find out about them? How did they get the training and begin flying? How long did these patrols fly? How much were they paid? What happened to them after the war was over? Were they allowed to fly in any other circumstance? This raises a related set of questions... how come so few women are commercial airline pilots? What percentage of commercial pilots are women, and how have commercial pilots historically been trained for their jobs?
As I am thinking about how this story of my mother flying planes affected me, my mother, and my family, I will also want to think about how this story matches up with the reality of the world around me. Making this match will help me to think about what purpose the story served for us. As an example of thinking through the purposes stories serve, I might think more about Amelia Earhardt, one of the first and best known aviators: why did so few women follow after her, and why, given that so few women fly planes, is Earhardt's story so well-known and often told?
While this is a web-based project and will be linked from your homepage, you will have to do a great deal of revising and editing before these are letter-perfect and ready to submit for a grade. We will be working on these projects in the followig stages:
1-- Identify stories and brainstorm writing possibilites
2-- Make a list of points that you will have to research (including persons to interview)
3-- Do a preliminary Internet search (using Galileo databases and the Henderson library catalogue)
4-- Write a project proposal
5-- Begin collecting and reading research and keep an ongoing annotated bibliography
6-- Pre-write (including brainstorming, outlining, free-writing)
7-- Draft
8-- Revise
9-- Peer Review
10- Revise (and revise and revise and revise and revise)
11- Second peer review
12- Edit
13- Submit final projects
(I will be conferencing these projects with
individuals and group throughout the next 7 weeks.)
|
Peer Review Project Proposal Preliminary Bibliography Site Sketch/Outline Final Bibliography All Draft Work |
Abstract Site Map (Table of Contents) Bibliography Equivalent of 8 pages of written material Links to relevant websites |
Resources
for Writing and Research Page
Writing
about Gender and Culture Resources Page
Henderson
Library Research Page and Sources for Writing about Race, Class, Gender,
and Culture