GRANT RECIPIENTS:

Ana Hernandez, English and Communications, Wolfson
ahernand@mdcc.edu
Emily Sendin, Communication, Arts & Philosophy (CAP), InterAmerican
esendin@mdcc

This project will create a forum for M-DCC students and six visiting, contemporary, published, women authors to explore, through literature, contemporary socio-cultural issues. The resulting dialogue between students and published writers will provide students with different successful approaches of documenting today’s cultural environment and its effect on women. Exposure to authors’ genuinely innovative works will inspire and prompt an improvement in students’ reading, writing, and communication skills as well as a critical understanding of the writing profession.

Students who are exposed to and interact with writers who are actively chronicling these times through both fiction and non-fiction literature, will be inspired to think critically as well as develop analytical skills that can be applied to other areas. By seeing, hearing and identifying with others who share similar backgrounds and who have succeeded, students will be more likely to preserver and continue their college studies. As a result class attrition will be low and the class room environment will be stimulating. Care will be given to select writers of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds, as well as those who employ a variety of writing styles.

Colleen Ahern-Hettich of The Florida Center for Literary Arts has agreed to help identify and approach writers, create all contracts and the FCLA will fund authors’ honorariums as well as travel and expenses. Care will be given to select writers of diverse ethnic and racial backgrounds, as well as those who employ a variety of writing styles.

In our observation, students began this project in a sort of “awe” of the authors, yet quickly came to see each book as a living instrument. They came to realize, through the author’s insights, that every piece that is produced is a process, and one doesn’t just sit down one day, say “I’m going to write a book” and magically it appears. Students were surprised by how many times some manuscripts were rejected, and for several of the authors how many times they were dejected and looked to give up. As well, the diversity of our authors was something to which the students connected. With the authors they walked the streets of Hong Kong, the beaches of Mexico, the lanes in Scotland, the brownstones of New York, the parks of Canada and the nation’s avenues of social injustice. One student even came across a website called “The Gender Genie” which claims to be able to identify a writer’s gender based on a sample passage that is sent to the website.

Produced for the class were author biographies, syllabi – hard copy and as part of an eportfolio (visitor's pass, so eportfolio samples can be viewed was created. The link is www.livetext.com and the LILT visitor's number is EB939B52) – essay topics, an exercise to identify how many female authors the students could name in a twenty minute time span. In addition, there were class evaluations of each author, thank you cards that the students signed for each writer, and videos of the Thursday night presentations.

Furthermore, the Miami Dade College office of Institutional Research provided us with a comparison of similar classes (LIT 2480) taught by Emily Sendin and Ana Hernandez during the previous Spring’s semester (2002-2).

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