Mapping stories

While perusing my Google Reader feed I randomly noticed a headline and clicked on it to read the accompanying story. The Globe & Mail Q&A article featured Toronto writer Anne Michaels, an author of poetry and fiction, whose book The Winter Vault incorporates an idea that fascinated me. According to the article, a character in the novel, "meticulously assembles dozens of unusual maps. Maps of tree roots and wind corridors. A chocolate map. A remorse map. A map of the dead. A secret hope map."

The more I read of the article, the more fascinated with the idea I became. I think I might go to my local library to find a copy of The Winter Vault to read and learn more about this mapping stories concept. It just might be the jumpstart my brain needs to come up with interesting writing ideas of my own. I'll keep you all posted :)

Passion and purpose

One of my passions is reading. I did a writing/editing concentration, but that's because no university I know offers just a plain old reading concentration. I've always loved reading and from the time I learned how to read I always made sure to grab a book whenever I left the house. This practice came in handy at school whenever I had a minute of free time or if I had to accompany one of my parents while they ran errands.

While most of my fellow elementary school students proclaimed recess as their favourite part of the school day, mine was always right after noon hour when we'd rest our arms on our desktops, lay our heads down and listen to the teacher read us a chapter from whatever book we happened to be working our way through. I discovered some of my favourite books this way: Snow Treasures, King of the Wind, My Side of the Mountain, The Chronicles of Narnia. Many other favourites were found during evening family worship as we cuddled together on couches and rocking chairs. Blaze the Cat, Monka the Monkey, The Detective Zach series, the Shadow Creek Ranch series, The Bronze Bow, Treasures of the Snow, Sunlight, Mindy, Song of Eve. And still more books came alive at bedtime when my mum, or occasionally my dad, would pick out a book from our library, climb onto the end of my bed and read as many chapters as I could convince them to. Little House on the Prairie and all the books that sprung from that series, The Ramona books, the Betsy-Tacy-Tib series, Follow My Leader, Daddy Longlegs and countless others. Later, in high school English classes, I fell in love with Light a Single Candle, Hamlet, Les Miserables and more short stories and plays than I can possibly remember.

I love books. Their feel, their smell, the promise of potential a crisp, new book carries, the mystery and intrigue an old, worn book exudes. And I want everyone else to feel the same way about books as I do. I know everyone is different, has different tastes, different hobbies, different passions in life. But what about those people who don't like books, not because they aren't into reading, but because they can't read? For several years I've wanted to do something about the problem of illiteracy. I know the problem is so much bigger than anything I personally can solve, but I could make a difference in the life of one, and maybe in the lives of some.

Last year, in my final semester of university, I took Literary Journalism, a new elective class that sounded fascinating. For my project I decided to write about adult illiteracy in the Chattanooga area. I went to visit an adult reading class, observed everything going on, took copious notes, interviewed the volunteer teachers and then students. I heard their stories, I listened to their hurt. How people made fun of them for mispronouncing words. How reading one small Bible verse in Sunday School was heart-stopping. How little they knew of current events because they were unable to read the newspaper and learn about the world around them. How limited their job options were. How year after year their teachers didn't care, gave up on them without even giving them a chance. How they failed Phonics, Language Arts and English but were passed into the next grade, cast off to become another teacher's problem. And I was furious. But what could I do? A senior journalism major who became interested in their plight to fulfill the requirements of a university course. I finished my 20-page account of the state of literacy in the Chattanooga area, happily graduated and left the country. I spent a blissful summer in the hot, dry Okanagan Valley, preoccupied with swimming and boating, quadding and hanging out with friends, traveling to far-away provinces and preparing for a year of service.

And now I'm here in Tanzania and my thoughts travel back to Southern's School of Journalism and Communication conference room where six students and one teacher struggled to tackle subjects ranging from the Adventist dating scene, to a local cult, to a female-dominated knitting group, to a student missionaries death, to IHOP's nightlife. And illiteracy. What did I learn from my research? How did that information help anyone? What could I be doing now?

I'm feeling unsatisfied. I'm here to do PR for ADRA Tanzania but I'm given no guidance, no advice or suggestions. I think up new ideas for creating more awareness of ADRA TZ, but am told that "we've never done things that way. Let's stick to what we know will work here." I try to adhere to the old standards but am asked to "think outside the box and stir the waters with new ideas." I'm confused and feel purposeless. I want to find something else, something to make me feel like my time here has a purpose, that my year here is not a waste. Not full-time, maybe just one day a week. I want to get back into the literacy scene.

I want to help someone learn to read.
I want to be of service to the people of Tanzania.
But I'm lost and don't know where to start looking for ways to get involved.

Class memento

I'm so excited.  I have a lot of new reading material.  Dr. Nash took our Literary Journalism projects and photocopied all six of them for each of us to keep.  So now we all have a 150-page memento of experiential, immersion, and reportage-based literary journalism.  When we got our copies, we passed them around the table, getting everyone to sign their own piece, which I think is really cool.  Now I can't wait until my last exam is over, the hype of graduation weekend dies down, and I'm on the road home.  Then I'll be able to finally settle down and read my humongous document.  It's going to be great!  My only regret is that we didn't get Mr. Lale to do the same thing for us in Creative Writing and Adv. Creative Writing.  That would have been really nice, too.  I love reading really great writing from people I know - my peers and classmates!

Towering voices

When I read, I hear the character's voices in my head.  Probably everybody does this when they read.  Anyway, today in Adv. Creative Writing Janelle brought her drama from Creative Writing last semester and Robby read it.  It was awesome because he used voices.  They were different than what I'd imagined when I read her drama months ago, but they also worked.  It's interesting that the voices you hear can be different than the ones other people hear, but both can be right.

Also, I did something today that I wanted to do last year, but didn't actually try out to see if I could.  It looked hard and I didn't want to get physically injured so I didn't even try.  But this evening I did and it turned out to be not as difficult as I'd thought it would be.  It definitely helped, though, that I had a spotter and I knew I wasn't doing it all on my own.  Oh, and the view from the top was exceptionally amazing!

Voice recorder

I'm kicking myself. Well okay, not literally, but I should be. Today I went down to Goodwill Chattanooga to sit in and observe on an adult reading class for my Literary Journalism project. (Some background: My project is on illiteracy and adults who can't read or don't read very well.) There was an intensely amusing moment when I first walked into the classroom. I don't want to go in detail about it on here since it's perfect for my project and I want to save it for that, but I'll give you an overview:

I walk into the room exactly two minutes late for the class. Only the teacher and one student sit at the table. As soon as he sees me walk in the student jerks his head up and proclaims, "It's Alison!!!" (Yes, he said my name with at least three exclamation points, maybe even a few more.) I stop just inside the door, blinking in surprise. He was a totally stranger to me. He jumps up and lumbers over to me, squeezing me in a hug before I have time to react. He then informs me that I had visited Hosanna Community and told me his name. It all started coming back to me. Last January (the 2009 one), Danielle and I had gone to Hosanna Community, a community in Hixson which fosters independence for adults with disabilities, to help clean up the grounds and the buildings for Community Service Day. This guy lived there and remembered me coming to help out. More incredibly, he remembers my name from that one-day visit 14 months ago. Needless to say, I was astonished.

So that was the most random part of my visit. The rest of the first class went by in rather ordinary fashion. The second class did as well and I was getting a little discouraged that I wouldn't have any material to show for my two-hours of time downtown. While the volunteers helped the students in the more advanced class, I interviewed the teacher, getting lots of good information about her, but not too much that would actually help me for my project. Near the end of the class she let me talk to the students, just like she had in the beginners class. I wasn't too optimistic about getting good info. The first class hadn't given me much, but I went ahead and interviewed them anyway. I asked one guy some questions and he gave me short, brief answers. One of the volunteers tried to help by explaining my questions further, but his responses were the same. Nothing I could use for my projects. Just "yes" "no" "yeah kinda" "I don't know" etc. I'm not sure how he managed to give those answers for my open-ended questions, but trust me, he did. I ran out of questions before he gave me anything good. I turned my attention to the second student. Before I even asked him a question he was off. He gave me the most beautifully eloquent motivational speech I had ever heard. My pen was going at top speed trying to get all the stories and top-notch quotes documented correctly. Just as he was winding down, I realized that I had my voice recorder with me. I was so mad at myself for not getting it out of my backpack before the second student started talking. I'm pretty sure I got most of his speech down on paper, since he talked slow and deliberately, but I wish I'd recorded it anyway. It was really touching and almost made the volunteers cry. I'd give anything to go back to yesterday at 2:50 p.m. and do that interview over again.