Students write about community
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Kathryn Watterson with
Catherine Casey '02 (front l), A-Dae Romero '02
(l), and Iming Lin, Anna Evans, Jessica Hafkin,
Andy Kane and Clare Huang, all Class of '03
(Photo by Ron Carter)
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This course offers something few Princeton courses do: a chance to participate in the community," says Iming Lin '03.
Lin is a student in The Writer in the Community, a student-initiated seminar in which participants volunteer for community programs and write about their experiences. Taught by Lecturer in the Council of the Humanities Kathryn Watterson, the course is offered by the Princeton Writing Program and fulfills the University's writing requirement.
Lin volunteers with homeless children in an after-school arts program at the Arts Council of Princeton. "The sense that I'm doing something worthwhile," she says, makes her "excited about writing."
The course, supported by the Community Based Learning Initiative, builds on a fall course Watterson taught in which students worked as participant-observers in local community organizations and wrote papers profiling the programs they served. Those students, says Jessica Hafkin '03, "asked that the course be allowed to continue."
Features, profiles, commentaries
In the current course, returning students, as well as new students just beginning community-based work, concentrate on shorter articles and essays that include features, profiles and commentaries. The pieces, says Watterson, "focus on the challenges and realities faced by low-income children, adolescents or adults, as well as the people trying to make a difference in their lives."
For example, Hafkin works at the Princeton Nursery School. She observes and writes about "the day-to-day interactions that make the nursery work and that make it so special for the community." She has also interviewed staff members, including the executive director, and community members who attended the school as children.
Anna Evans '03 volunteers at Rainbow House, a group home in Trenton for women who are pregnant, HIV-positive or recovering from drug addiction. She records "my observations of the place. There is a lot of love in the house and a deep sense of family and belonging. I wrote one piece about single mother families, concentrating on one of the women there."
Catherine Holahan '02 is with Work First New Jersey, interviewing welfare workers and welfare recipients. She has written "about hunger and the impact of recent welfare reform laws on people in the Trenton community."
Learn more about life
In class students read and comment on works on social issues by such authors as Jonathan Kozol, Ian Frazier, Tracy Kidder and Eli Anderson, as well as numerous essays and articles to which they write responses. They also read such works as Writing Ethnographic Field Notes by R. Emerson, R. Fretz and L. Shaw.
Watterson offers advice on the art of the interview. "When you set out to do an interview," she says, "you're setting out to hear a story. Part of your job is to capture in writing the spirit and language of the individuals interviewed. Observe the environment and the details you see and hear." She also urges students to "Enjoy yourself. This is an opportunity to learn more about life, more about living."
While much of the research for the course takes place off campus, the classroom sessions are key. Students read their work and share comments and critiques. Led by Watterson, they discuss such issues as, What ideas might be expanded upon? Would an anecdote add to the writer's arguments at a certain point? Is the conclusion effective? If not, how might it be improved?
Says Evans, "Every person is given a copy of each paper, and then as a class we edit and give suggestions." This process, she says, "allows you to see your writing from different perspectives and has been really helpful for revisions."
Details for immediacy
Watterson encourages students to use details to create a sense of immediacy. "Tell me what picture you saw," she says. "If you say someone is 'weird,' what did you observe that brought you to that conclusion? If someone is described as being 'in a bad mood,' how do you know that? What did that person say or do that made you think so?"
"I know that my writing now has a lot more details and images than before," Evans says. "An important goal of the class is to allow your reader to see the people and places you write about, not just to tell them."
Hafkin believes the course "has helped me incorporate many different voices and present a strong argument in a conversational manner that both engages and informs."
In addition to joining in class commentary, Watterson works closely with each student in individual biweekly conferences. She is, according to Hafkin, "forever willing to help her students become better researchers and writers."
"You teach writing by helping people write," Watterson believes. "The more they write, the easier it becomes. You can help people think more clearly and use language with greater precision and effectiveness, but the real learning is in the writing and in the revising, which they do themselves."
Many students "come to Princeton knowing how to write a thesis, three supporting paragraphs and a conclusion," she says. "That's what an essay is to them. I want them to learn how to write from the inside out--to write what they think, feel and care about." She tries to lead students to "a fluid, graceful prose that is academically sound but expresses a full sense of reality."
First-hand experience
Watterson, who began teaching at Princeton in 1998, is former editor of the newsletter "Princeton: With One Accord," as well as the author of numerous books, stories, articles and essays. Women in Prison: Inside the Concrete Womb (1976,1996) became an ABC documentary; You Must Be Dreaming (1992) was the basis of an NBC movie, "Betrayal of Trust"; and Not By the Sword won a 1996 Christopher Award.
As a reporter in the 1970s, Watterson covered civil rights and antiwar activities, the women's movement and the criminal justice system. "I still care passionately about these issues," she says.
Her passion has helped create a course in which students work in the community, "where our help is very important," says Andrew Kane '03, who is a tutor for Princeton Young Achievers, an afterschool enrichment program. "I've learned how important first-hand experience is, both in understanding educational issues and in writing about them."
Lin comments, "There's enough time at Princeton to look at masterpieces of literature and ponder esoteric concepts." But as a Writer in the Community, she says, "I've had the opportunity to learn from people and experiences and to broaden my view of the world."
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