Wednesday, September 10, 2014
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!
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!
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Wednesday, November 12, 2014
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://
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Wednesday, November 26, 2014
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.
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