Diné Bizaad and English Composition

Diné Bizaad and English Composition

Grant:
Lecturers' Professional Development Fund (LPDF)
Academic Year:
2013 - 2014 (June 1, 2013 through May 31, 2014)
Funding Requested:
$1,512.00
Project Dates:
-
Applicant(s):
jbhorton
Overview of the Project:
I applied for the Lecturers' Professional Development Fund to establish an ongoing dialogue between my students in the English Department Writing Program and the Navajo (Diné) students Diné College in Tuba City, Arizona. Through an in-person visit and online student connection, I endeavored to establish a collaborative discussion of composition and craft, worldview and identity, and applications of academic writing in life. The collaboration ultimately allowed me to visit and speak with four Diné College classes and allowed for two conference calls between UM students and Diné College students.
Final Report Fields
Project Objectives:

The goal of this collaboration was to introduce student writers to other student writers, and through my work with the students and faculty at Diné College, UM undergraduates engaged in two valuable discussions with their peers, talking about everything from the revision process and integrating personal experience into academic writing to the value place and landscape play in a writer's identity.

Project Achievements:

This collaboration consisted of my visit to four classes in Tuba City and two conference calls between our combined seven classes, as well as discussions about the teaching of writing with Janel Hindrichsen and Molly Wilson, Diné College English faculty members, and Lisa Eutsey, English Department Chair. Particular highlights of the collaboration in Arizona included working with students to develop culturally and communally-relevant paper topics (a notable exchange involved the importance of wind on the reservation as a potential power source for the future and as a hindrance to driving, agriculture, and daily life) and discussing passages in Leslie Marmon Silko’s Ceremony with students in Professor Wilson’s Literature of the Southwest course. Highlights of the dialogue itself were those incredible moments of connection between students: one of my students, bravely admitting her parents’ struggles with alcoholism, prompted a Diné College student to subsequently admit her own family situation as similar, particularly in how it resonated in her writing; one of my first-year students for the first time felt comfortable discussing his own background when prompted by a Diné College student, and my student then went on to analyze the resonance of his Arab-American and Venezuelan heritage in his final essay; Diné College students explained how taking care of their families’ sheep influenced their worldview, how writing and art more broadly cannot necessarily be separated into individual disciplines, how writing helped access a troubled tribal history of violence and neglect, or how their writing and revision process (thinking, planning, writing, revising) followed the four sacred tenants of Navajo life— Nitsáhákees, Nahat'á, Iiná, and Sihasin.

Continuation:
Along with my colleagues in Tuba City, I am very excited for this collaboration to be an ongoing one. We are all eager to perhaps establish a semester-on-semester connection between our classes to not only strengthen our institutional bonds but to benefit new student populations every year.
Dissemination:
I'm eager to share the story of this initial collaboration, and it is my hope that this dialogue becomes a valuable and longstanding one for our department. As our department appreciates new and inclusive approaches to the teaching of writing, this collaboration will, I think, prove helpful to our continued innovation.
Advice to your Colleagues:
Logistical challenges are always present, particularly within long-distance communication, but visiting Diné College and introducing myself in person to the students and faculty involved was the most successful aspect of providing all of our classes with a thoughtful dialogue.
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