Nancy Mack | Wright State University (original) (raw)
Papers by Nancy Mack
The yearbooks enabled me to compile the information for the "Team history" section and the "Photo... more The yearbooks enabled me to compile the information for the "Team history" section and the "Photos" section. Boomtown Babes History In May 1978, 60 girls from Burkburnett High School, from grades 9 through 12, tried out to become the first members of the Burkburnett High School drill team. Thirty-eight girls were selected to be members of the Boomtown Babes. Girls tried out in front of judges who rated them based on poise, projection, enthusiasm, performance, and showmanship.
Engaging Writers with Multigenre Research Projects by Nancy Mack offers preservice and inservice ... more Engaging Writers with Multigenre Research Projects by Nancy Mack offers preservice and inservice educators a method for using meaningful writing to connect students’ life experiences with school. Through interviews with family, friends, and community members, writers discover rich stories that become the foundation for their projects. The information gained from the interviews is supplemented and juxtaposed with academic research into related social issues. Students then communicate their multifaceted knowledge about their topics through carefully selected genres. Building the report from real-life genres both invites students to use their individual strengths with graphics, media, music, and art and challenges them to master unfamiliar genres that afford opportunities to document, represent, and complicate the lives of real people. Thus, a scrapbook project about a seaman who lost his life in the Pacific during WWII includes letters to his sister about his life aboard the USS St. Lo as well as a webpage about a Japanese monument that extols the religious motives of Kamikaze pilots, one of whom took this sailor\u27s life. In another project, an incident of racism is dramatized in a play about the day that a young Hispanic boy is denied entrance into a dinner where his lighter-skinned father awaits. The play contrasts the perspective of a fearful, bigoted owner who had previously been reading a newspaper article about Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in baseball with the viewpoints of his wife and several bystanders. The event in the play is further complicated in other genres as the victimized boy becomes an adult whose angry daughter writes a journal entry about being forbidden to have Black friends while her father rationalizes in an inner monologue that he must protect his family from being rejected by the white town\u27s people. This project ends with a eulogy that explains that this same father later changed his beliefs in order to accept new family members from other races. These multigenre research projects contain layers of facts, stories, and analysis, incorporating contradictory viewpoints and complex social forces that complicate topics that otherwise might have been previously reported as one-dimensional information
Engaging Writers with Multigenre Research Projects by Nancy Mack offers preservice and inservice ... more Engaging Writers with Multigenre Research Projects by Nancy Mack offers preservice and inservice educators a method for using meaningful writing to connect students’ life experiences with school. Through interviews with family, friends, and community members, writers discover rich stories that become the foundation for their projects. The information gained from the interviews is supplemented and juxtaposed with academic research into related social issues. Students then communicate their multifaceted knowledge about their topics through carefully selected genres. Building the report from real-life genres both invites students to use their individual strengths with graphics, media, music, and art and challenges them to master unfamiliar genres that afford opportunities to document, represent, and complicate the lives of real people. Thus, a scrapbook project about a seaman who lost his life in the Pacific during WWII includes letters to his sister about his life aboard the USS St. Lo as well as a webpage about a Japanese monument that extols the religious motives of Kamikaze pilots, one of whom took this sailor\u27s life. In another project, an incident of racism is dramatized in a play about the day that a young Hispanic boy is denied entrance into a dinner where his lighter-skinned father awaits. The play contrasts the perspective of a fearful, bigoted owner who had previously been reading a newspaper article about Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in baseball with the viewpoints of his wife and several bystanders. The event in the play is further complicated in other genres as the victimized boy becomes an adult whose angry daughter writes a journal entry about being forbidden to have Black friends while her father rationalizes in an inner monologue that he must protect his family from being rejected by the white town\u27s people. This project ends with a eulogy that explains that this same father later changed his beliefs in order to accept new family members from other races. These multigenre research projects contain layers of facts, stories, and analysis, incorporating contradictory viewpoints and complex social forces that complicate topics that otherwise might have been previously reported as one-dimensional information
This chapter is from the book Composition and Resistance, which is meant for anybody in the compo... more This chapter is from the book Composition and Resistance, which is meant for anybody in the composition business-teachers of composition theory and writing intensive courses in both college and high school, teacher educators, teachers of rhetoric, and graduate students. Composition and Resistance is a moving orchestration of our profession\u27s deepest concerns about the economic, social, political, and practical aspects of teaching writing-matters that touch us all, both day-to-day and over professional lifetimes. This is an action-oriented text, emphatic in its condemnation of unexamined persuasions, injudicious policies, uninformed practices, and stodginess; and liberatory in its arguments for change
Critique can function as more than a scholarly pursuit; it can become a valued skill for survivin... more Critique can function as more than a scholarly pursuit; it can become a valued skill for surviving as an outsider within an academic context. Because universities are complex, largely reproductive systems, being a hard worker and following the rules does not necessarily lead to reward or even much notice. Increasing demands and multiple layers of political machinations foster disillusionment and alienation. Participating in programs, grants, and other initiatives only increases the perils, not to mention running the gauntlet of publishing and tenure. As egotistical as I may be, it is best to remember that the academic universe is not the only place fraught with crushing hegemonic pressures. Being a parent, teenager, or restaurant server all necessitate the ability to analyze the forces that impose limitations and subvert one’s agency to author ethical, answerable acts. Fortunately, critique has long been expressed through many productive means such as music, cartoons, jokes, parodie...
By teaching writing I am asking students to buy into an academic identity and to learn to write l... more By teaching writing I am asking students to buy into an academic identity and to learn to write like a member of what I have sarcastically called the discourse community country club. I also know that teaching this prestigious discourse to working-class students places them in a subordinate status to those who have been privileged by the academy.1 Language is a class marker that can expose inferiority with one error in punctuation, word ending, or pronunciation. Conversely, hearing, speaking, or writing one small turn of phrase from my working-class roots can be ethically satisfying.2 Language is so powerful that its use creates us as uncomfortable outsiders or welcomed insiders. Language contains a shifting terrain of ideologies we cannot talk ourselves out of. We both speak and are spoken to by language. Unless I address how learning academic language can make working-class students feel like imposters or traitors, I am denying the potential social injustice embedded in my job as a writing teacher. And teaching the literacy narrative presents the possibility of critically analyzing the emotional labor that cannot be separated from academic identity formation. Like most teachers, my approach to teaching literacy narratives began with trial and error. I have taught variations of this assignment in several courses from first-year to graduate level. Fortunately, I quickly gave up asking students to write a history of their school experiences, which I believe boxes students into composing predictable glosses. I began problematizing the way I taught literacy narratives at Wright State University to working-class students, assisted by my readings from critical theories about identity and emotion. The first section of this chapter discusses the life process of identity formation in order to establish the significance of narrative writing. The next section describes the imposter phenomenon Emotional Labor as Imposters
Panel chair: Nancy Mack, Wright State University Angela Beumer Johnson, Wright State University, ... more Panel chair: Nancy Mack, Wright State University Angela Beumer Johnson, Wright State University, “Less Is Moor: Conflict and Connection in Selected Scenes of The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice” Rachelle Arnett, West Carrollton High School, “Engaging Students in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet through Multi-Media, Performance, and Selected Scenes” Jennifer Ostendorf, Wayne High School, “Delving into Characterization through Selected Scenes of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar
The yearbooks enabled me to compile the information for the "Team history" section and the "Photo... more The yearbooks enabled me to compile the information for the "Team history" section and the "Photos" section. Boomtown Babes History In May 1978, 60 girls from Burkburnett High School, from grades 9 through 12, tried out to become the first members of the Burkburnett High School drill team. Thirty-eight girls were selected to be members of the Boomtown Babes. Girls tried out in front of judges who rated them based on poise, projection, enthusiasm, performance, and showmanship.
Engaging Writers with Multigenre Research Projects by Nancy Mack offers preservice and inservice ... more Engaging Writers with Multigenre Research Projects by Nancy Mack offers preservice and inservice educators a method for using meaningful writing to connect students’ life experiences with school. Through interviews with family, friends, and community members, writers discover rich stories that become the foundation for their projects. The information gained from the interviews is supplemented and juxtaposed with academic research into related social issues. Students then communicate their multifaceted knowledge about their topics through carefully selected genres. Building the report from real-life genres both invites students to use their individual strengths with graphics, media, music, and art and challenges them to master unfamiliar genres that afford opportunities to document, represent, and complicate the lives of real people. Thus, a scrapbook project about a seaman who lost his life in the Pacific during WWII includes letters to his sister about his life aboard the USS St. Lo as well as a webpage about a Japanese monument that extols the religious motives of Kamikaze pilots, one of whom took this sailor\u27s life. In another project, an incident of racism is dramatized in a play about the day that a young Hispanic boy is denied entrance into a dinner where his lighter-skinned father awaits. The play contrasts the perspective of a fearful, bigoted owner who had previously been reading a newspaper article about Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in baseball with the viewpoints of his wife and several bystanders. The event in the play is further complicated in other genres as the victimized boy becomes an adult whose angry daughter writes a journal entry about being forbidden to have Black friends while her father rationalizes in an inner monologue that he must protect his family from being rejected by the white town\u27s people. This project ends with a eulogy that explains that this same father later changed his beliefs in order to accept new family members from other races. These multigenre research projects contain layers of facts, stories, and analysis, incorporating contradictory viewpoints and complex social forces that complicate topics that otherwise might have been previously reported as one-dimensional information
Engaging Writers with Multigenre Research Projects by Nancy Mack offers preservice and inservice ... more Engaging Writers with Multigenre Research Projects by Nancy Mack offers preservice and inservice educators a method for using meaningful writing to connect students’ life experiences with school. Through interviews with family, friends, and community members, writers discover rich stories that become the foundation for their projects. The information gained from the interviews is supplemented and juxtaposed with academic research into related social issues. Students then communicate their multifaceted knowledge about their topics through carefully selected genres. Building the report from real-life genres both invites students to use their individual strengths with graphics, media, music, and art and challenges them to master unfamiliar genres that afford opportunities to document, represent, and complicate the lives of real people. Thus, a scrapbook project about a seaman who lost his life in the Pacific during WWII includes letters to his sister about his life aboard the USS St. Lo as well as a webpage about a Japanese monument that extols the religious motives of Kamikaze pilots, one of whom took this sailor\u27s life. In another project, an incident of racism is dramatized in a play about the day that a young Hispanic boy is denied entrance into a dinner where his lighter-skinned father awaits. The play contrasts the perspective of a fearful, bigoted owner who had previously been reading a newspaper article about Jackie Robinson breaking the color line in baseball with the viewpoints of his wife and several bystanders. The event in the play is further complicated in other genres as the victimized boy becomes an adult whose angry daughter writes a journal entry about being forbidden to have Black friends while her father rationalizes in an inner monologue that he must protect his family from being rejected by the white town\u27s people. This project ends with a eulogy that explains that this same father later changed his beliefs in order to accept new family members from other races. These multigenre research projects contain layers of facts, stories, and analysis, incorporating contradictory viewpoints and complex social forces that complicate topics that otherwise might have been previously reported as one-dimensional information
This chapter is from the book Composition and Resistance, which is meant for anybody in the compo... more This chapter is from the book Composition and Resistance, which is meant for anybody in the composition business-teachers of composition theory and writing intensive courses in both college and high school, teacher educators, teachers of rhetoric, and graduate students. Composition and Resistance is a moving orchestration of our profession\u27s deepest concerns about the economic, social, political, and practical aspects of teaching writing-matters that touch us all, both day-to-day and over professional lifetimes. This is an action-oriented text, emphatic in its condemnation of unexamined persuasions, injudicious policies, uninformed practices, and stodginess; and liberatory in its arguments for change
Critique can function as more than a scholarly pursuit; it can become a valued skill for survivin... more Critique can function as more than a scholarly pursuit; it can become a valued skill for surviving as an outsider within an academic context. Because universities are complex, largely reproductive systems, being a hard worker and following the rules does not necessarily lead to reward or even much notice. Increasing demands and multiple layers of political machinations foster disillusionment and alienation. Participating in programs, grants, and other initiatives only increases the perils, not to mention running the gauntlet of publishing and tenure. As egotistical as I may be, it is best to remember that the academic universe is not the only place fraught with crushing hegemonic pressures. Being a parent, teenager, or restaurant server all necessitate the ability to analyze the forces that impose limitations and subvert one’s agency to author ethical, answerable acts. Fortunately, critique has long been expressed through many productive means such as music, cartoons, jokes, parodie...
By teaching writing I am asking students to buy into an academic identity and to learn to write l... more By teaching writing I am asking students to buy into an academic identity and to learn to write like a member of what I have sarcastically called the discourse community country club. I also know that teaching this prestigious discourse to working-class students places them in a subordinate status to those who have been privileged by the academy.1 Language is a class marker that can expose inferiority with one error in punctuation, word ending, or pronunciation. Conversely, hearing, speaking, or writing one small turn of phrase from my working-class roots can be ethically satisfying.2 Language is so powerful that its use creates us as uncomfortable outsiders or welcomed insiders. Language contains a shifting terrain of ideologies we cannot talk ourselves out of. We both speak and are spoken to by language. Unless I address how learning academic language can make working-class students feel like imposters or traitors, I am denying the potential social injustice embedded in my job as a writing teacher. And teaching the literacy narrative presents the possibility of critically analyzing the emotional labor that cannot be separated from academic identity formation. Like most teachers, my approach to teaching literacy narratives began with trial and error. I have taught variations of this assignment in several courses from first-year to graduate level. Fortunately, I quickly gave up asking students to write a history of their school experiences, which I believe boxes students into composing predictable glosses. I began problematizing the way I taught literacy narratives at Wright State University to working-class students, assisted by my readings from critical theories about identity and emotion. The first section of this chapter discusses the life process of identity formation in order to establish the significance of narrative writing. The next section describes the imposter phenomenon Emotional Labor as Imposters
Panel chair: Nancy Mack, Wright State University Angela Beumer Johnson, Wright State University, ... more Panel chair: Nancy Mack, Wright State University Angela Beumer Johnson, Wright State University, “Less Is Moor: Conflict and Connection in Selected Scenes of The Tragedy of Othello: The Moor of Venice” Rachelle Arnett, West Carrollton High School, “Engaging Students in The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet through Multi-Media, Performance, and Selected Scenes” Jennifer Ostendorf, Wayne High School, “Delving into Characterization through Selected Scenes of The Tragedy of Julius Caesar