Thoughts on the Biography Process

I'm not sure if this applies to anyone else, but another way that I was struck by this biography and by the biography Mina helped to write, is learning the methodology used in producing such a work.  I always found the prospect of writing a biography to be interesting, but must admit, have never once considered the process.  After reading Mina's experience with Foddick (via Maher) I was a bit surprised with the amount of work was needed.   And then after meeting Maher and learning what she did in order to create this one I am just astonished. It clearly makes sense now though.  One way that Maher put it in an essay she wrote about writing Mina's biography, is that you have to write the life of someone.   How do you get that right? How do you pack decades' worth of experiences, growth, emotion, accomplishments and lives that were touched by a single individual?  I imagine the incredible anxiety in the hopes of ensuring the details are true and that the story is really as it was and not simply the author's interpretation of the events.  We all have our own experiences and perspectives and unconsciously reflect those onto everything we do.  I wonder what it must be like to be constantly metacognitively removing yourself  from the text as well as yourself from current social norms.  Maher explains,

"It is at times like these when a biographer begins to feel the burden, the responsibility of the task. There I sat with Mina's papers in my lap. Mina' s brother had entrusted them to me-I was about to try to tell a life. Imagine trying to get someone else's life right. Many months later, I would mention this to Adrienne Rich, who had been hired by Mina in the late 1960s to teach basic writing at City College. 'Of course you can't get it right,' she told me, 'but you can get it righter.'" (Maher 54)


Maher, Jane.  "Writing the Life of Mina P. Shaughnessy."  Writing Across the Curriculum Clearinghouse.  wac.colostate.edu Web. 20 Dec. 2014   http://wac.colostate.edu/jbw/v16n1/maher.pdf

Additional Resonating Quotes

"Mina's ability to concentrate was amazing.  At about this time, people began to realize her importance; her reputation in the field was growing. Many people wanted to meet with her, to be with her, to be seen with her.  They wanted a piece of her, but Mina did not let anything get in the way of her work.  ...She moved very quickly from one thing to another; she was very good at that.  She did not talk very much about what she was doing...she just did it." (137)

"Everybody says this, I know, but Mina Shaughnessy changed my life.  She was one of the most charismatic people I have ever met, and her interest in the students was so far above the politics swirling around her. Her motives were genuine; that's what set her apart." (99)

The influence that Mina had on other people's lives is so inspirational to me. As a woman and as an educator.  As a woman because there is a certain strength females must possess in order to be able to achieve great and impactful things like she did.  Maybe less today than in the 1960s and 1970s, it still rings true that woman are expected by many in our society to adhere to a more passive role of caretaker or support of some kind.  When women begin to succeed, which may also demand respect or attention, they are usually regarded as masculine or as "bitches," such as in the case with Hillary Clinton or certain female CEOs.  Additionally, women have a great deal to consider when pursuing a demanding career, such as having a family.  As an educator, she inspires me because the same care that she had for her students is the way I feel about mine.  I sincerely want the best for them all.

Link to Presentation Slides

Here is a link to the presentation slides via Google Slide.

Presentation of Mina P. Shaughnessy: Her Life and Work

The Reality of Diving In

In her work, Jane Maher outlines the four stages of a teachers development in Mina Shaughnessy's Diving In:

1. Guarding the Tower

2. Converting the Natives

3. Sounding the Depths

4. Diving In

I read Diving In for the first time about a year ago. While I certainly enjoyed the piece and could recognize the gravity of her words, it wasn't until I reread it when the gravity actually sunk in with me.  As a tutor in the Writing Center and an instructor of writing at City College, I too, have experienced the very stages she outlines in her essay.  It's amazing (or scary) how accurate her depiction of each stage. 

Admittedly, when I began at the writing center, I was rather taken aback by the quality of writing.  I had come from a very different institution, so I suppose my expectations were higher than they ought to be.  I was, in essence, guarding the tower.  Still, I can remember vividly one student in particular who truly pushed me to dive in.  She was a Russian student struggling with article usage.  In her native language, there are no articles, so naturally this was a great difficulty.  I could see, however, that she was a diligent student who could "catch up" with my help.  Here, I was attempting to convert the natives.  From here, I tried to simplify the rule of article usage to something as simple as: whenever you have a noun, you need an article.  As our sessions continued over the semester, we reached a roadblock: uncountable nouns.  I had completely ignored such an obvious obstacle.  I realized that perhaps article usage was only simple to me because, as a native, I inherently understood how to use them.  Now, I was sounding the depths.  I began to closely study the intricacies of the English language on to realize that there is really no logical to it.  I now understand the difficulty of learning it.  So, I had but one choice: to dive in.  If I truly wanted to help her to succeed I had to dive in as an educator to remediate myself and become a better instructor. 

Resonating Quotes

        "Unless we revolutionize our colleges, where we are producing only a few people who master the skills and do all the analytical work of the society, we are betraying the students. The task of a writing teacher in a basic course is to prepare students to write close, organized, reasoned prose and to encourage students to make judgments and to work with larger and larger collections of date. I would consider this a bit like some of the basic skills you need in a society, driving a car, knowing how to penetrate the rhetoric of politicians.
       It's hard for me to imagine anyone entering into any job or particular civic responsibility where they don't have a chance to control things of being controlled by them.  The people who are so ready to dismiss the need for this skill are generally the people who have already acquired it to a great degree themselves and are using it to make an argument against it" (216).

Mina has such a wonderful way with words.  There's such a constitutional ring to her statements, without being overly political and obtuse, which would alienate her audience.  She knows how to balance the line well.  While I believe in her message, I have difficulty envisioning it coming to true fruition.  I'm reminded of the video Discounted Dreams, where the Dean of a community college explains the "churn" method of education.  In short, so long as there is an equal or higher number of students entering the doors as there are leaving, then the institution is happy.  The school really does not care for the progress of their students, which is quite upsetting.  Still, we need more people like Mina to believe in an ideal world and strive to make the one we're in a little bit better.

Tangents and Readjusting Focus on My Research

I’m a bit embarrassed to say how much time I’ve spent on my research so far, but it’s certainly been more than a full workday. And it seems that even as I make progress, there are more questions that need answering. Karen is right, all the information within Jane Maher’s biography could easily spread over the course of a semester.

I think time management is where I’ve really honed my skills. On principle, I can’t do mediocre work without feeling guilt and disappointment. Take this for example: for me, most of last week was spent exploring the 1960’s and the important political (both national and international) figures, movements, and catastrophes. It wasn't enough to just get some dates and statistics and move on. Eventually my decision came down to only using the essential facts required to give a background on the political tension that led to the City College takeover and eventually the implementation of the Open Admissions policy. Still, I found myself getting carried away, reading newspaper archives, searching for protest photos of various movements, and even watching a presidential address by President Nixon. In fact, I listened to Creedence Clearwater Revival! I said this to Karen last week but it’s worth reiterating, I'm immersed in the period and find myself being ripped apart from the tragedies and consequences of the Vietnam War while also being inspired by the energy of the Black, Latino, and Women's movements.

However, I see the importance of letting certain things go in my research. I'm back to focusing  on Open Admissions with relation to Mina Shaughnessy and I can say, pretty confidently, that her innovation in the field of Basic Writing is directly correlated to Open Admissions. And this is part of what I will spend the next couple of days focusing on in my part of the presentation

The lingering difficulty of Errors and Expectations

         Nearly 40 years after its release, Errors and Expectations still rings true today.  Instructors like myself struggle addressing, recognizing, and categorizing student errors.  It's quite tempting to simply mark up a student's essay in red ink, circling all the errors; however, this exercise it rather useless to both student and teacher.  For the teacher, it is a lot of work; for the student, it is overwhelming and discouraging.  In the writing center, when working on a student one on one, we typically locate two common errors in their writing, as per Mina's suggestion, and focus on those.  This makes for a much more successful session as the student can absorb the limited information and the teacher can focus closely on only two concepts.  This is, as Mina notes, diving in.

Some worthwhile historical NYT documents

Hi all,

During my research on the Open Admissions policy, I came across Mina Shaughnessy's obituary and profile in the historical edition of the New York Times. The profile on her is especially noteworthy since before this piece City College had received a lot of negative press in the media.

Sok

Response to Alumni Reception with Jane Maher

I write in response to Jane Maher's speech at the alumni reception.  In her brief, yet captivating speech she said something along the lines of how she is amazed by how scholars and educators today still continue to bring down her name and her association with Open Admissions.  I guess I hadn't thought of that view.  Sometimes, we read articles and books in this program, and don't pay too much attention to the author.  However, with Mina, it's as though she can't escape her inevitable connection to Open Admission, despite it not being of her own design.  As Jane spoke, I could sense how bothered she was by the fact that people keep attempting to tarnish her image and legacy nearly forty years after her passing.  Mina was a revolutionary.  Sure, she didn't have it perfect, but she sought to fix the imperfect nature of the broken system.  Too often do we look at the negative, when we ought to look at the other side.

Third Book Group Meeting, Nov. 25, 2014

The four parts of our presentation are taking shape. They are:

1)      Mina Shaughnessy, her character, a woman of contrasts (Karen)

2)      Mina Shaughnessy and the Open Admissions Movement at CCNY (Sok)

3)     Mina Shaughnessy’s legacy for teachers (Nick)

4)      Mina Shaughnessy author interview, photographs, possibly audio (Maria)

Each presentation should be 8 to 10 minutes long, to be followed by questions. We are also asked to prepare a two-page flyer to hand out to classmates.

We should meet at least once before our presentation, which is now on our last class day, December 16. We said we would decide at our next class, December 2. It looked like Karen, Nick, and Maria had time to meet on Thursday December 4 mid-day. Can we all have a first draft of our presentation to make to each other on that day?

Jane Maher is having trouble finding the audiotape of the Mina Shaughnessy interview. She wrote this morning to say she may have given it to her son-in-law to make a copy. She’ll ask him on Thanksgiving. 

Open Admissions and the City College Takeover of 1969

As the day of our book club’s presentation nears, I find myself digging further into CCNY’s history. I’m interested in the history and effect of the Open Admissions policy at our school, as well as the takeover that led to this result. I’m finding a number of sources through JSTOR articles. One that stands out is a two-part series retrospective of Open Admissions at CCNY by former City president, Robert E. Marshak, who was appointed in 1970, shortly after the policy was put in place. After last week’s Highland College simulation of a stakeholder’s symposium, I’m curious to see what Marshak’s view was as a professor-turned-administrator who stepped into the college at a time fraught with political tension and significant structural changes.

Continuing on the path of finding perspectives by people who were physically there during this pivotal time, I found an article at Hunter College’s Centro, the Center for Puerto Rican studies (which publishes a journal by the same name) with interviews of five (Puerto Rican) participants of the City College takeover.

I’m also interested in examining how the political climate played in part in the lead up to the City College takeover. (Keep in mind that this is in the midst of the Vietnam War, and one month before the takeover, the “secret war” of bombing Cambodia had begun).

And of course, I intend to do further research (outside of the Jane Maher book) about how and where Mina Shaughnessy fits in all of this.

 

Photos from Jane Maher Interview

Hi everyone,

Here are some photos I took the day we interviewed Jane Maher.  She provided us with Mina's first and raw draft of Errors and Expectations that she kept in a binder.  You'll see the typed papers have her notes handwritten on them.  Further, there are photos of some the students' blue books which Mina studied to create her book.  You'll also see the actual spiral notepad her mother Ruby used to keep notes about the ranch in.  Hope you enjoy and hopefully we can use some of them for our presentation!

-Maria


Photos from Jane Maher Interview

Mina Shaugnessy: The Legacy vs. The Individual

It would be understandable to expect in a blog for our book club about Mina Shaughnessy that posts would include new realizations about her life and work. However, going over the end portion of Jane Maher’s biography of MS alongside a transcript of a recent interview by my fellow classmates (Bravo!) with Jane Maher, I’m finding MS to be  an even more elusive figure.

I’m having a hard time reconciling the difficulties of her personal life with her tireless, brilliant efforts in establishing the field of Basic Writing and the scholarship along with it. After uncovering more about the personal side of MS, even Professor Maher mentions how she struggled “with what [she] was going to do with that information.”

It’s hard to imagine that a person who was so productive, refined, charming, aesthetically-pleasing, and inspiring, who easily connected to students and faculty alike, to have what Jane Maher refers to as a “disaster” of a personal life. But I think it is this paradox that makes her so intriguing and remarkable to me. When I think of her last weeks of life, the amount of visitors and attention she received, the requests she received for speaking engagements, down to her memorial where each speech lasted almost twenty minutes long, I find myself trying to locate someone I know who could invoke such a memory or presence. And I struggle to find anyone who could fit the bill.

This reminds me of a comment that Professor Gleason made early on in the semester. I don’t remember the exact wording but it was something to the effect of the danger of Mina Shaughnessy’s legacy overshadowing who she actually is and the work she did. In my effort to learn more about this major figure who spearheaded the Language and Literacy program, I hope not to let my understanding of her be swayed by people who remember her more as an idea than a person with flaws alongside her success, those “flaws” being what made her so vulnerable and most importantly, so human.  

Second Meeting on Book Presentation, Nov. 4, 2014

During our second meeting, we shared our responses to Mina Shaughnessy: Her Life and Work now that we have read more of it. We determined that each of us would focus on what we are most passionate about in the book and try to weave that into our class presentation.

Karen is most struck with the enigma of Shaughnessy--from the West, but very cosmopolitan; a scholar but also a fashionista; loved and hated by people in equal measure, etc.. That may be a way to present the biographical information of her life.

Nick is considering using the address she gave to the Modern Language Association conference in 1975, "Diving In," as a jumping off point to address her approach to teaching basic writers. He may be able to address its usefulness to him as a teacher and to other teachers.

Shaughnessy's role in the open admissions movement at City College will be another huge part of our presentation. Both Maria and Sok are interested in this part of the story. We are working on ways to divide the topic.

We may also address strengths and weaknesses of the book, or what it is and what it isn't.

We may also create a power point or prezi to tie our presentations together.

Original Outline for Book Presentation, Sept. 17, 2014

During our preliminary conversation, we agreed that the goal of our project should be to give life to  the legend of Mina Shaughnessy. Each of us is finding a personal connection to her story and her  work that we can build upon in doing that. Our project may take this four-part form:      • Introduction – Summary of Shaughnessy’s life and times, including the Open Admissions         movement and the creation of the new discipline called Basic Writing      • Interview – Possibly videotaped. We will pursue an interview with Jane Maher         and/or other people who knew and remember Shaughnessy      • Teacher’s Perspective – Nick and Maria may discuss how Shaughnessy’s Errors and         Expectations informs how they work with students      • Legacy – Mention Journal of Basic Writing, the MLA Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize, the         Mina Shaughnessy Speakers Series, CUNY Language and Literacy MA. Also, what has         become of the Basic Writing discipline? Has it shaped or even transformed all college (writing) education as Shaughnessy hoped it would? What do critics of her approach say? Next steps: We will all finish reading Mina Shaughnessy: Her Life and Work, Errors and Expectations, and other documentation of Shaughnessy’s life. We will pursue interview/s with Maher and/or others. As we collect information and learn where our interests lie, we will sort out who does what. We will use our group blog to share thoughts and ideas as we progress (http://minashaughnessybasicwritingbookgroup.blogspot.com/).

Resonating Quotes

• "Mina did do her best: she devoted all of her formidable intelligence, experience, discipline, and energy to the SEEK students through her teaching, through her administration, in her writing, and in her presentations - and she did so despite great resistance to her work, resistance that often took the form of personal attacks." (90)

• "Mina and other SEEK instructors were accused of being incompetent; their credentials questioned; they were made to feel unwanted.  City College was no place to teach fundamentals of writing, many of the tenured professors claimed. 'Is this what I'm being paid to do?' asked Geoffrey Wagner, one of the staunchest (and most vocal) opponents to Open Admissions.  ...he exclaimed: 'You've brought the slums to my office.'  Mina often found threatening and insulting notes in her mailbox or scrawled on her office door, [or] pornographic photos...with the word 'whore' printed across them." (94)

These quotes remind me of Professor Gleason's point/warning made in class that those entering and working in the field of basic writing would receive less respect than professors that teach something of more prestige like history, language, or mathematics.  Our student base will be seen as a hassle, a weight bringing the institution down, a liability.  Mina charged through the opposition to reach the greater purpose of helping the disadvantaged succeed.  There is still opposition in having to have to "clean up other's messes".  Perhaps a part of the American identity of individualism?

Getting Started

Greetings! On my way to the subway after class last night, another classmate told me one of the reasons she didn't choose to join our group is that Amazon's cheapest copy of Jane Maher's biography, "Her Life and Work," is now $42! Yikes. When I got home I checked, and she was right! But I also found that I had actually gone ahead and ordered a copy along with my other books last week, and paid only $12. Dumb luck for me. Still, the small vendor I bought it from isn't promising delivery until September 26, though I'm hoping for sooner.

In case you haven't bought a copy and can't get it cheaply or quickly enough, here's a pdf version I found:
"Her Life and Work"
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED403603.pdf

And here's a pdf of Jane Maher's article in the Journal of Basic Writing in 1997, "Writing the Life of Mina P. Shaughnessy."
Writing the Life of Mina P. Shaughnessy"
http://wac.colostate.edu/jbw/v16n1/maher.pdf

So then I did the next thing I always do in researching these days: check Wikipedia, Google Images and YouTube. Alas! Mina Shaughnessy died in 1979, long before ubiquitous camera phones and selfie obsessions. Long before routine videotaping of every conference presentation. So she's still a very elusive figure, brought to life only in words. But Maher's book includes a number of photos that I may be able to photograph and reproduce as part of our presentation. At least I plan to try. And although I couldn't find anything on the CUNY library website, I will pursue any resources they may have. I'm wondering if there's anyone else around who remembers her and who might be willing to talk about her on audiotape? Barbara has some memories, though many of us have already heard them. Might be worth getting them down on tape anyway. Cheers!