reports, rumors, and talk among people, all occurring in a “closed system” where not many competing voices existed. Language and symbols seemed to hold people hostage. The teachers I worked with did not write about their fears, and I regret that there was no structure in place during my stay, nor was there enough time to begin such work.
That year, my colleague from the University of the Western Cape agreed with me for the need to address trauma in writing, and we began plans to work with HIV-positive patients and their writing. This was formalized two years later, with my group of USA graduate students—none of whom were HIV-infected—and his group of South African writers, who were. Too many complications of distance prevented these two groups from working directly with each other, but my colleague and I learned a lot about how to focus and implement our efforts. We next planned to create a humanities curriculum that would be infused with HIV/AIDS education: what it is, how to cope with it, how to communicate about it—all woven into the study of art, literature, and mass media. Unfortunately, my colleague was killed in a car accident and the project ended. Finding a like-minded colleague a world away was not easy.
I then decided to teach my next writing about trauma course with a major change: I would include media, especially visuals, with writing. I was convinced that imagery and language could work in tandem to “heal” a variety of traumas—that working with both symbol systems simultaneously would create more “combustion” for us to re-see, re-frame, and extend our perceptions of trauma. Despite my fears, the course was again a solid success. Students held nothing back, as they plunged deeply into verbal and visual renderings of their own traumas. For examples, see Chapter 4, “Seven Writers Composing in Word & Image.”
Finally, in creating and revising this course over several years and researching this book, I was also encouraged by responses from many conference talks I gave around the world. My sessions attracted relatively small but sincere audiences. I still recall a woman at UCLA coming up to me after my session who said, “This is not just academic stuff—You’re really doing something!”
The Syllabus
What I want to do in this course is immerse students in the topic of trauma, so that they may understand it, and, maybe someday, engage in it with their own students. Therefore, I want students to write it, think about it, read it, talk about it, visualize it, analyze it, and synthesize it. The complete course syllabus for Teaching Therapeutic Language, Literature, & Media appears in Appendix A. While this course is aimed at masters and doctoral students in English Education, much of it can be adapted for other levels and situations. If you have the luxury of working with teaching assistants, they can be very useful for everyone involved. For the course referred to here, two graduate teaching assistants volunteered to work in the class, even though they could not be paid. They simply wanted to participate. Rebecca Dierking collected data for her own dissertation throughout this course, and Deb Holland wanted to figure out if she also wanted to focus her dissertation on writing and trauma. They were especially helpful because the three of us could talk about how the class was going as it progressed and brainstorm possible changes, all in ways that usually did not specify individual students.
The required books and articles listed in the syllabus are intended not just to convey important and relevant information, but also, to convince students that writing about trauma is a serious topic, researched by scholars in many disciplines. Also, the book, Finding a Voice: The Practice of Changing Lives through Literature (Trounstine and Waxler 1999), documents the powerful roles that literature plays in working with adolescents, whose traumas include committing crimes and subsequent arrests. Instead of sending youthful offenders to prison, they are “sentenced” to reading well-selected books of fiction, then meeting in a library and discussing the literature with a librarian, a parole officer, and sometimes a judge. These programs in Massachusetts, Kansas, and a few other states have reduced the recidivism rate of those participating. My students read this book near the end of the course; it opens their eyes to another effective application of using language to defuse current traumas, as well as to limit future ones.
Following is the course description, which I hoped would challenge students, as well as communicate the spirit of experimentation.
What do we mean when we speak of “composing as a way of writing about trauma” and the “therapeutic uses of language and other symbols”? New fields of inquiry are emerging, but with inconsistent names (e.g., “Resilience”; “Emotional Literacy”; “Spiritual Studies”). How should we use words, images, music, and other symbols in such ways—whether it be temporary academic or personal problems, psychological trauma, or disease? How is “writing to heal” similar to “writing to learn” and “writing to communicate”? What roles do other literacy activities and symbol systems—especially reading and viewing—play in using therapeutic language?
How can writing processes and strategies that are described primarily from a cognitive perspective—one that values linearity, sequence, cause-effect, logic, and propositional thinking—and those that are rooted in “other ways of knowing”—ways which value emotion, images, silence, intuition, spirituality, chaos, and the unconscious—be integrated or reconciled to assist people who engage in writing about trauma? How do the therapeutic uses of symbol systems align with professional standards for English and Language Arts professionals? This graduate seminar will explore these thorny (but endlessly fascinating) issues.
This course, then, will provide you an opportunity to engage in the following activities:
Use evidence-based and standards-based teaching to also enhance students’ wellness.
Use a variety of writing prompts and literature to elicit and develop oral and written language to explore major life events.
Revise writing as a means of increasing one’s control over major life events.
Employ specific elements of general semantics to explore major life events in rational, grounded ways.
Of course, we could not resolve so many complex questions, but the activities occurred throughout the semester. Finally, every time I’ve taught this course, I’ve included a professional “counseling psychologist on call.” It helps if this person can visit and speak with the class. Fortunately, I’ve never had to call upon this counselor for specific advice.
Following are the course’s three major requirements. First, students had to complete weekly “projects” that included text and visuals. These were responded to in small peer groups, as well as by the instructor, and then revised as many times as the student wished. Near the end of the course, these projects were to be re-conceptualized into a “Collage Essay” (See Elbow, 1997). Specific information for all requirements appears in the syllabus in Appendix A. The second requirement was a “Mini Case Study” in which students were to apply their knowledge to a specific student, interview the student, and analyze her writing. The case study was intended to help “move” students away from focusing on themselves and their colleagues, and move “toward” their own students. This requires a lot of “quick distancing” for some students and may not be appropriate for your own situation. Third, students had to participate in Socratic Seminars focused on the assigned readings.
In short, this course employed three major types of pedagogy described by Lauer (2004): 1) the “natural ability pedagogy,” in which students write about what is most interesting to them and provides feedback, all within a supportive environment; 2) the “imitation pedagogy,” in which students also read extensively for examples of what they are composing themselves; in this course, such imitation was never directly requested; instead, it was left up to writers how (and even if) they wanted to somehow emulate another student’s example or a professional piece; and 3) the “practice pedagogy,” in which students write frequently and receive a variety of types of feedback, written and spoken (121).
While the major requirements each contain a percentage of the total course points, I tell students that I will not place any kind of grade or number or other symbol on their papers—but they will indeed receive much feedback, through my comments on their papers and my talking with them. I tell them that I do this because I can get away with it! Less cheekily, I explain that if they have come this far in their careers, they should have at least one experience in