Stephanie Wade | Stony Brook University
Over the past seven years I have been designing community-engaged classes classes that focus on food justice and educational equity.
In these classes, college and K-12 students worked together in school and community gardens; they wrote together; and in the most recent classes, the college students developed research projects and engaged in public writing that serves community needs. From these experiences, I have begun to develop a multi-institutional project called the Almanac of Garden Writing, and I am hoping some of you might want to collaborate on this with me. In this presentation I will describe almanacs, explain the Almanac of Garden Writing and the needs it serves, and offer a quick overview of the prior work that has lead me to this project.
Almanacs
A long-standing form of multi-genre, public writing.
Almanacs blend information, opinions, poetry, images, puzzles, and more.
They include opportunities for readers to actively engage with the text with places for notes.
What is the Almanac of Garden Writing?
- Now: A growing collection of writing prompts that focus on gardens and that model a seasonal, ecological approach to writing.
- Later: A template for schools and community groups to use to publish their garden-based writing.
A Seasonal, Ecological Approach to Writing
Too often, writers and their writing are constrained by rules-based approaches that dominate many schools.
- Garden-based writing offers space for work that engages students who are marginalized in traditional classrooms and offers opportunities for inquiry-based writing and community engagement.
Creative writing
In these classes, I introduced the college students to writing pedagogy and permaculture. They practiced writing workshops with each other. We played and gardened together with school children, and the college students developed writing prompts and facilitated writing workshops for the younger students.
One class concluded with a community meal of local food, including potatoes grown by the elementary school children. At this meal, attended by parents and other community members, the students recited a poem they wrote collaboratively.
We aimed to build connections between the college and elementary school students and to offer the elementary school writers an opportunity to experience joy along with writing. For final projects, the college students develop workshops for site of the choice, such as national parks, summer camps, urban gardens, and wildlife rehabilitation centers.
Unity College students and Troy students engage in observational, multi-sensorial writing.
Unity students and Troy students share writing.
Bates College students and Geiger School students in the after school program make nature bracelets and engage in multi-sensorial, observational writing.
Geiger students share writing
Bates students and Geiger students create garden journals.
Bates students and Geiger students write collaborative poems.
Reflective writing: In the essay below, a college student demonstrates her understanding of her own privilege and the importance of community engagement.
- "While I grew as a student inside the classroom, I learned even more outside as a community member of Bates and Lewiston/Auburn. I saw more of my place in the community, inherently privileged for being a white Bates student. Through traveling throughout L/A and drawing out maps of specific places, I felt more like a member of a community beyond just Bates.
- I liked this class for how interdisciplinary it could be. I could connect the material in all of my classes together and frame information in different ways from my different perspectives. This class hasn’t been just a gardening class. Community gardening, social justice, and writing are all each such multifaceted ideas with complex issues, and I hope to continue unpacking them in the future.
- I want to stay connected to the L/A community by going to the gardens, Whiting Farm, and Nutrition Center when I can, while also to the community our class created together this semester."
Academic writing: teaching process and audience via the garden.
In these classes, the college students studied food justice, they worked in school and community gardens, and the developed research projects that resulted in public writing that served community needs.
Removing invasive species in a community garden
Using a gallery walk to refine research questions.
Reciprocity: The teens with whom we partnered were experienced gardeners, having completed a summer environmental leadership program, which gave them expertise that they shared with the college students, who brought the experience of age and further education to the relationship.
Public writing 1: Students created pitches for projects to increase opportunities for our campus to function as a site for social justice. They presented the pitches at a poster session in the student center.
Public writing 2: Students created print and digital material to educate community members about rewilding.
During the 2021-2022 academic year, I taught English language arts at a small high school in rural Maine.
My students and I created a community garden for the town library, down the road fro the school. This website documents some of that project.
The Almanac for Gardening Writing: Seasonal Prompts for Ecological Writing.
Thank you!
Stephanie Wade
stephanie.wade@stonybrook.edu