My outreach experience has taught me many things. I’ve learned not just from what I’ve done, but what I’ve seen done as well. Ms. Glupker has been incredibly helpful to me before, during, and after my work with her class. I greatly enjoyed the work I did with her and I’m thankful for the opportunity I had to work with her again, and I hope that I will eventually be able to even more in the future.
While I was teaching, I was also being taught. I left my outreach with knowledge about teaching, learning, and succeeding. Ms. Glupker always kept me active while I was in the classroom, which really helped me understand what it takes to teach. I was able to observe the methods of learning of students from an outside view, instead of relying on my own personal knowledge of how learning is done. She also answered any questions I had, both about working in the classroom and about various writing-related inquiries.
The most important thing I learned during my experience working in the classroom was the importance of adapting and improvising. This lesson was first acknowledged in the reflection of October 15, “During my time in the classroom, I’ve noticed that as the day goes on, Ms. Glupker will change how she structures the class slightly based on what happened in the class prior. She changes things for time and clarity, mostly. As I’ve seen this, I’ve been doing the same in helping the students with their work. I monitor myself to see what I can improve on and what I’m doing well to make sure that each class gets the best out of me that they can. I’ve been working on being faster in my interactions with the students in order to be able to get to more of them in the time available. It’s interesting that, even though I’m doing the same thing in each class, I can find different ways to do those things. It’s a very subtle, yet very important, part of being in a position of teaching to be flexible in your methods.” This has stayed in the back of my mind as I’ve continued this semester, even after I finished my work with Ms. Glupker. As a student, I have to continually adapt, and occasionally improvise, in order to get my work done. I also have to always be learning from my mistakes, reflecting on my experiences, and changing myself to achieve my goals.
The work I did directly involved the relationship between community and art/language. The community was of students and teachers learning and teaching grammar and English overall. While this would traditionally not involve the arts, I’ve learned, both from being a former student of WTMC and from volunteering there, that learning happens more productively when the students can be creative. I’ve mentioned before how students turned to and too into drawings to signify their meanings, and this is just one example of artistic creativity melding with the learning of language. The students have the opportunity to write in many different genres: poetry, fiction, non-fiction, short story, memoir, etc. Even with more structured assignments, they are given some freedom to write in a way that they are comfortable with. The freedom of creativity in the learning environment boosts the effectiveness of the lessons being taught, and I believe that is a strong example of a working relationship between the community and arts/language.
My experience in my outreach can best be described as a learning experience. To truly define my experience, I have to look at what I knew, what I didn’t know, and what I learned. I knew that working with students was something that I could do and that I was able to help people learn grammar. What I didn’t know was how the students would learn, how they would react to me, what methods would work best in that specific classroom environment, and many other things that I simply couldn’t have known. What I learned was that students learn best when what they’re doing feels like it matters, working directly with students or groups of students allows work to be done effectively and efficiently, preparation and adaption is key in successful teaching, and so many other things I wouldn’t be able to list them all. I will go back to the importance of working with students for a moment, because it’s an important part of what I learned, although less personally important than the adaption thing. The lesson learned from working with students directly, and through allowing them freedom in their work, is that in order for people to care about what they’re doing, they need to be actually involved.
With my gained knowledge from my outreach about communities, though, I don’t believe how I think about literary/artistic communities has changed. I’ve always seen the literary/artistic community as a somewhat pretentious, close-knit group actively participating in work to “better” areas or people through artistic/literary means. I don’t see myself as part of that community and I don’t actively try to be part of that community, as my artistic/literary work is done primarily for me, which does not seem to be the goal of the community as a whole. My stance on civil engagement has been altered by my outreach experience, however. I’m much more keen to the idea of civil engagement or volunteer work than I was previously, although I have done it in the past. The last time I worked with Ms. Glupker, it was a more relaxed workshop-style class and I wasn’t constantly thinking about what I was doing and what effect it had like this class has made me do. In taking a look at my actions and work, I’ve seen that volunteering is very rewarding. I’ve also learned that civil engagement is much more interesting when actually engaging.
I believe that for literary conventions such as readings, academic journals, and personal writing and reading to be more effective, they need to become more personal. My work with the community helped me focus on the fact that personalized attention helps create a better environment. For readings to take off, the audience needs to be, or at least feel, involved instead of just sitting idly as an observer. Academic journals need to be written in such a way that people can read them and understand them without needing a dictionary at hand just to get through. Solitary writing and reading needs to be emphasized and encouraged more, goals need to be given to people in order to make them feel like they’re going to accomplish something by doing it. Basically, from what I’ve learned in my community outreach, in order for things to be successful, everyone needs to be directly involved in some way.
This thought also heavily applies to the “dissemination of literary work” (which is also an example of the writing that needs to be written in a way for anyone to understand). In order to spread literature and literary practices, those you’re trying to spread it to need to want it spread to them. You can’t just spread around literary work and have people by default want to be part of it, you need to incentivize them by making them feel like what you’re trying to give them matters to their life. Make them feel like they’re part of it. If people believe that what you’re trying to share with them will affect them, they’ll be more likely to share in it with you and continue to share it with others.
This helps me to move on to my next point of creating a literary community of my own. If I were to encourage and bring to life a literary community, it would be full not of people who read and share literature, but of people who create and enjoy literature. I want a community of writers to come about, to speak their minds through the written word and have their voices be heard by those not just willing, but wanting to listen. I want the opinions of these authors to be shared and respected in the community. I want the work of each contributor to be enjoyed not because it should be, but because it can be. The literary community in my mind is one that focuses more on engaging each person than trying to spread literary work to everyone.
A literary job I might invent would be something I hope I have the opportunity to become: an author of the people. I want to write for me, but of everyone. I want to incorporate people into my work: take their requests, put them in stories, meet and engage with my readers. I want to become someone that aspiring authors can look up to, someone that will help young writers figure out what they can do to get started. I want to become an example of what can go right when you follow your dreams and let your passion carry you through the drudges of life. I want to become an author.
CRTW 300 