See Crowley and Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics,
chapters
3 and 4, for more on the
rhetorical technique of conjecture.
rhetorical technique of conjecture.
The Public Work of Rhetoric_nodrm
" When she described herself and her friends walking through the park encountering "mean people who talk about others" and who "might not like you," it is plain to see that her goal is to get rid of that nega- tivity.
Positive human relationships were the heart of it. A jock confessed what he learned from his coach, after he and his friends were laughing at a boy who could not catch the ball. "You never tease a fellow player. He's a part of your team! " Another jock confessed that while he likes to "show off in football to boost up" his self-esteem and confidence, it hurts him to hear people say, "You suck. " He realized that he does not have the self-esteem he thought he had, and moreover, that the true source of his confidence was not in sports, but in "becoming a scientist. " What he wrote about was that moment when he knew: looking through the microscope with one eye and, with the other, at a career in chemistry or gerontology. "In this writing," he confessed, "I am taking off the mask. " Like the girls who untangled themselves from gender expectations--LaVarsha Griffin wrote with some resignation, "People always expect me to clean up"--DeJohn separated himself from the masculinity he felt compelled to perform.
Publicity Effect
I had high hopes that these essays might stoke these stases in public dis- course, and so by the end of the summer, Malinoski and I created a book of the teens' writings that they chose to call Two Sides of a One Track Mind. This fit their sense of humor and, from my point of view, their dissoi logoi. Many months later, the book was published and distributed to the teens and their parents at an awards ceremony put together by Councilwoman McQuinn. Before that ceremony, which was in the fall, McQuinn released a few of the students' essays to the RTD as a press release about the workshop. And that created a middle space of some size and capacity.
Shebony Carrington Dear Friend,
I don't know where you live or what you do, but I do know this: you don't want to live where I live. You don't want to see what I see every day. I live in Fairfield Court and I am going to tell you how I feel about it.
It's true the houses are very nice looking. They just put new ovens in, and a while back they put in new refrigerators. But the place still isn't
Sophists for Social Change 167
168 David J. Coogan
? "Where I'm From to Where I'm Going. " Front page, Richmond Times Dispatch, August 12, 2005, reprintedby permission of the Richmond Times-Dispatch
right. Some of the houses are dirty, and they are only cleaned when it's time for inspection. After that, they go back to being dirty houses again. The people in my neighborhood don't take pride in how it looks.
Some people feel comfortable sitting on their porches, but now they can't because of the shooting and the crazy people around the neighbor- hood. No matter what happens, there are always people arguing. There are people that walk around the neighborhood looking stupid. In other words there are people who drink too much liquor and beer and walk around bent over, smelling like alcohol. That's not a good sight.
In my neighborhood there are some streets that are clean, but there are some streets that are nasty looking. The area that I live in is clean because there is always someone picking up the trash. On other streets there are just people who throw trash on the ground. There are some people that just sit around and drink and leave their beer bottles/cans on the ground. Another problem is the drug dealers. They sell drugs and urinate in front of the children. They just don't care what they do, so they're just going to do it.
I don't think that the negative things in my neighborhood are going to stop me from being what I want to be in life. I see the negative things in my neighborhood but I'm not involved in them. I feel that being on the outside of the situation looking inside makes me want to help peo- ple. I feel really bad because of the people that are being hurt and bruised from getting beat up. Just because I'm in the neighborhood around these
things, it doesn't mean that anything is going to stop me from accom- plishing my goal of being a doctor. When I grow up I want to become a General Practitioner. That is a doctor you go to for everyday needs like if you have a cold or if you are sick. I want to become a General Practitioner because I like to help other people. Darren Thomas, the preacher from the Temple of Judah told me, "To be somebody you have to help some- body. " So I'm going to be that person to help somebody.
What might be in my way from accomplishing this goal is my nega- tive attitude toward some situations. What I mean is that someone may come across the wrong way by getting smart with me or getting frustrated with me and I might not know what to do or say to them. Then, I might get an attitude with them. However that's not stopping me from being me. What I mean is that there are some people that expect me to be a young lady and not to play sports. They would rather see young ladies dress up and wear heels and also keep their hair and nails done. But me, I just want to be comfortable for myself. It doesn't matter how I look as long as I'm clean and comfortable. I am going to be me no matter what.
Media General, the owner of the newspaper, later told me that over 9,000 people read the essay online and that it got more hits than any other story in the entire history of the paper online. The editors had also created a blog where roughly 100 people wrote comments, nearly all of them positive. Read- ers responded well to this strong voice emanating from public housing. Of the ninety-six recorded comments, roughly one-third (twenty-four comments) addressed Shebony's placemaking directly. "You go, girl! " one of them wrote. "Don't let your present dictate your future! " Readers liked the idea of some- body beating the odds of doing well even in public housing. An even greater number of the readers (thirty-seven comments) liked Shebony's Christian sense of how to do it. Some did this simply by telling readers "this child is blessed" or by closing their note, "God's speed. " Others offered advice to the writer-- "I would like to say to Ms. Carrington, 'Trust God. ' He will be there for you as long as you have faith and trust in Him. " Readers carefully noted that Shebony had already taken good advice and praised the advice givers: "I also attend Temple of Judah," wrote one, "and its good to know that you took what the minister said and ran with it. "
The Christian discourse of redemption through service, along with the defiant appropriation of American bootstraps, warranted the otherwise harsh juxtaposition between herself and the "stupid people" who "just don't care" about the greater good of the community. Shebony does not choose to rise while her community slides, but to make her success her community's suc- cess. Ultimately, it is not the drug dealers or drunks that she worries about, then, but the people who spark an attitude in her: "There are some people that expect me to be a young lady and not to play sports. They would rather see young ladies dress up and wear heels and also keep their hair and nails done. "
Sophists for Social Change 169
170 David J. Coogan
Her own expectation, to be "clean and comfortable" and "to be me no mat- ter what," suggested a contemporary alternative that concretized as it gener- alized. Who doesn't want to be clean and comfortable? Who doesn't want to steer clear of unreasonable gender expectations? Who doesn't want to help somebody? Who doesn't want "to be me"? Hart-Davidson, Zappen, and Hal- loran, in their work with young African American teen writers in Troy, New York, noted a similar resistance to "traditional gender roles. " But they also saw them temper self-confidence "about themselves and their futures" with "contemporary social and family values," including those found in "the mass media. "28 In this rhetorical performance, however, just as it was in many of the others I discussed in the preceding section, Shebony cut through those commonplaces.
Not everyone was so sanguine about the power of self-determination and faith overcoming structural barriers. The remaining third of the commenta- tors shifted the ground away from Shebony and her situation to the difficult environment of Fairfield Court. One characterized "this young lady" as "just one example of what our City youth experience day to day. "
I hope that the city council members catch this article and Mayor Wilder. She is asking for some help. She may not have said help me, but she painted a picture of a young girl who does not want to be caught up in what she sees in her neighborhood. I too, as a youth in Richmond said that I would not involve myself in those negative things, but because I did not have stable parent figures in my life I lost that hope, because
I felt like nobody else cared. I care young lady. Peace and Blessings! ! !
In telling her story of getting involved in "negative things" and then regret- ting it, this commentator made a confession while also inventing a broader argument about teens in need of community guides ("stable parent figures"). Closing the note with "I care," the reader symbolically became that guide. This was part of a larger effort to make a middle space online, but to go beyond it, as we can see in the following comment.
I have four children who live in Northside. They did not grow up there, but chose to live there. What they have encountered to their dis- may is the attitude of city officials that if you live in Northside you have to expect trouble. The result of this attitude is there is no follow up on solving crime here. If young people such as the author of the letter pub- lished today wish to have opportunities in life, the problems on their street should take the same priority as in any other part of the city.
These accusations of civic neglect contrast rather loudly to the prior analy- ses that were premised on Christianity and American opportunity. What stands in the way of opportunity here are "city officials" who shrug their shoulders at crime and tell you to "expect trouble. "
Most readers, however, did not waste time debating who was really to blame. They offered to introduce Shebony to medical work through their jobs or their connections, recommended inspiring books, or more mysteriously offered to send gifts. Others generalized the need to help teens like Shebony, counseling readers that "any little thing will help, whether it is volunteering at the schools or giving small donations for school supplies. " Then, in what seemed like a conscious response to the title of Shebony's essay, one com- mentator exclaimed, "We may not live where she lives or have her experi- ences thus far in her young life but we can help change her environment. I for one will seek her out to help her stay on track to achieve her goals. There are some more out there. Who else will help? " A week later, Rob Rhoden, the pastor at Commonwealth Chapel, answered that call. 29 He invited Shebony to his church to read her essay aloud. Here is how Dena Sloan, in the RTD of August 15, 2005, describes the sequence of events: "On Friday afternoon, a local pastor called. Less than forty-eight hours later, Shebony was standing in a church she had never attended, Commonwealth Chapel in the Fan District, facing a crowd of about 150 strangers and reading her essay. . . . The church's pastor, a man Shebony had met just a few hours before, told her that people she doesn't know are setting up a fund for her education. The tall, thin girl seemed at once stunned and pleased at the whirlwind of developments. Wear- ing a soft, green jacket and skirt, and with her short hair in a tight ponytail, she greeted well-wishers after morning services yesterday. 'It's a very good thing,' she said quietly. "
At the time of this writing, Pastor Rhoden's congregation has raised $10,000. 30 The "whirlwind of developments" continued when Habitat for Hu- manity called to see if Shebony's family might qualify for a home. 31 Months later, Shebony won first prize at the banquet honoring the writers, which was organized by Councilwoman McQuinn and Ernestine Scott. That night she went home with a laptop.
Not all of these whirlwinds blew favorably, though. Lindsay Kastner, in a follow-up piece for the RTD, wrote that "in her own neighborhood response has been positive and negative. . . . Some people told her the essay brought tears to their eyes. But Shebony said neighborhood drug dealers also had something to say to her. . . . 'Some said you been talking about Fairfield, you been snitchin. '"32 Though Shebony did not name any names or even partic- ular places, the snitch reaction indicated that she had provocatively chal- lenged rhetorical decorum in her community, that her placemaking toward mainstream values like hard work, sobriety, and a respect for the law had threatened their move away from it. The RTD columnist Michael Paul Williams praised Shebony on these grounds for her "precocious courage . . . to break the code of silence" and dismissed the snitch reaction as something emanat- ing from a "confused code of ethics" condoning irresponsible behavior, ille- gal activity, exploitation, and violence. 33
Sophists for Social Change 171
172 David J. Coogan
In "Where I've Been, Where I'm Going," Shebony Carrington spoke out against her placement in the city, constructing a scene in which her charac- ter could exit. And that is just what she did. She left Fairfield Court rhetori- cally. Then, with the publication of her essay and the invitation from Pastor Rhoden, she left it physically. She did not do this because I had taught her how to uncover the truth, as I saw it. She did it because I had asked her to ori- ent herself to a reading public.
In these feel-good, Oprah moments, where we can easily see the link be- tween rhetorical cause and material effect, it may be tempting to confuse the sophistic framework that I have been elaborating here with the Angels Net- work. And while I am certainly proud to have been a part of a process that landed the girl a med-school scholarship (and later landed another student whose essay got into the paper a dance scholarship),34 I hope I have also shown that sophists, in their capacity as teachers, writers and community guides, do not use rhetoric to target change. They make middle spaces for placemaking and poetic world making. Then they get out of the way.
Notes
1. Nolan, "Statements. "
2. Nolan, "After Rape. "
3. Nolan, "Statements. "
4. Nolan, "Teens Charged. " 5. Cooper, "Four Teenagers. " 6. Nolan, "After Rape. "
7. For further information on Councilwoman McQuinn and her district, see http:// www. ci. richmond. va. us/citizen/city_gov/district7/accomplishments. aspx.
8. For further information on ACORN, see http://www. richmondneighborhoods. org/.
9. Walters, "City Plans. "
10. Coogan, "Counter Publics"; Coogan, "Community Literacy"; Coogan, "Service
Learning. "
11. Jarratt, Rereading the Sophists, 42.
12. Ibid. , 40-42.
13. Crowley and Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics, 109.
14. Cushman, "Rhetorician. "
15. Jarratt, Rereading the Sophists, 2.
16. McKerrow, "Critical Rhetoric. "
17. See the essay by Candace Rai in this volume for an extended critique of inclusiv-
ity in citywide forums.
18. Mathieu, Tactics of Hope.
19.
See Crowley and Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics, chapters 3 and 4, for more on the
rhetorical technique of conjecture.
20. Goldblatt, "Alinksy's Reveille," 283.
21. McKnight, "Redefining Community," 117. 22. Marback, "Speaking of the City," 146.
23. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 122. 24. Ibid. , 114.
25. Ibid. , 87.
26. Ibid. , 68.
27. Hart-Davidson, Zappen, and Halloran, "On the
Formation," 135-37.
28. Ibid. , 135-36.
29. For more information on this church, see http://www. comchap. com/started. php.
30. Walters, "City Plans. "
31. Kastner, "Essayist. "
32. Kastner, "Youths' Essays Honored. "
33. Williams, "'Snitch' Shirts. "
34. MacDonald, who won second prize at the banquet and who also had his essay
published in the RTD, received a $360 scholarship for ballet lessons. According to Lind- say Kastner of the RTD, "Diontey's mother, Wanda McDonald Cooper, said she would not have been able to pay for his lessons. " Kastner, "Teen. "
Works Cited
Coogan, David. "Community Literacy as Civic Dialogue. " Community Literacy Journal 1 (2006): 95-108.
------. "Counter Publics in Public Housing: Reframing the Politics of Service Learning. " College English 67 (2005): 461-82.
------. "Service Learning and Social Change: The Case for Materialist Rhetoric" College Composition and Communication 57 (2006): 667-93.
Cooper, Alan. "Four Teenagers Sentenced in Rape on Probation at Time of Crime, They Get Roughly 30 Years Behind Bars. " Richmond Times Dispatch, July 20, 2005.
Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2004.
Cushman, Ellen. "The Rhetorician as an Agent of Social Change. " College Composition and Communication 47 (1996): 7-28.
Goldblatt, Eli. "Alinksy's Reveille: A Community Organizing Model for Neighborhood- Based Literacy Projects. " College English 67 (2005): 274-95.
Hart-Davidson, William, James P. Zappen, and S. Michael Halloran. "On the Formation of Democratic Citizens. " In The Viability of the Rhetorical Tradition, edited by Richard Graff, Arthur E. Walzer, and Janet M. Atwill, 125-40. New York: SUNY Press, 2005.
Jarratt, Susan C. Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991.
Kastner, Lindsay. "Essay: Where I'm From, Where I'm Going. " Richmond Times Dispatch, August 12, 2005.
------. "Essayist, 15, Grateful for Encouragement: Her Education Is Getting a Boost; Her Family May Qualify for Habitat. " Richmond Times Dispatch, August 27, 2005.
------. "Teen Steps Toward Goals: Art Center in Richmond Fosters Student's Love of Dance, Hopes for College. " Richmond Times Dispatch, January 9, 2006.
------. "Youths' Essays Honored: What Began as a Workshop in Summer Has Led to a Book Showcasing Their Work, Voices. " Richmond Times Dispatch, October 30, 2005. Marback, Richard. "Speaking of the City and Literacies of Place Making in Composition
Studies. " In City Comp: Identities, Spaces, Practices, edited by Bruce McComiskey and
Cynthia Ryan, 141-55. New York: SUNY Press, 2003.
Mathieu, Paula. Tactics of Hope: The Public Turn in English Composition. Portsmouth,
N. H. : Boynton/Cook, 2005.
Sophists for Social Change 173
174 David J. Coogan
McKerrow, Raymie. "Critical Rhetoric: Theory and Praxis. " In Contemporary Rhetorical Theory: A Reader, edited by John L. Lucaites, Celeste M. Condit, and Sally Caudill, 441-63. New York: Guilford Press, 1999.
McKnight, John. "Redefining Community. " In Writing and Community Action, edited by Thomas Deans, 116-22. New York: Longman, 2003.
McQuinn, Delores. "Teen Center Mission. " In East End Teen Center: "Bojangles Block" in Historic Church Hill. Richmond, Va. : East End Teen Center, 2004.
Nolan, Jim. "After Rape, a Long Healing Process: 4 Teens Will Be Sentenced Tomorrow in an Attack That Shocked the Community. " Richmond Times Dispatch, July 18, 2005. ------. "Statements Piece Together Rape. " Richmond Times Dispatch, November 13, 2004. ------. "Teens Charged in Park Attack: News of Arrests Cheers Local Residents Fright- ened After August Rape and Robbery. " Richmond Times Dispatch, September 10, 2004. Sloan, Dena. "'It's a Very Good Thing:' A Richmond Girl's Essay Prompts Church to
Fund Her Education. " Richmond Times Dispatch, August 15, 2005.
"Top 40 Under 40: Rob Rhoden, 36, Lead Pastor, Commonwealth Chapel. " Style Weekly,
September 27, 2006.
Walters, Brandon. "City Plans First Center for Teens. " Style Weekly, September 3, 2003. Warner, Michael. Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books, 2002.
Williams, Michael Paul. "'Snitch' Shirts Are a Sad Look. " Richmond Times Dispatch, Sep-
tember 5, 2005.
? Knowledge Work with the Cherokee Nation
The Pedagogy of Engaging Publics in a Praxis of New Media
Ellen Cushman and Erik Green
The Allottment Era in Cherokee History. Opening graphic for Cherokee Nation Web site at http://www. cherokee. org/allotment
In spring 2005 at Michigan State University (MSU), students enrolled in the Multimedia Writing class, including undergraduate Erik Green, along with instructor Ellen Cushman, produced an educational Web site in conjunction with representatives from the Cherokee Nation (CN): Gloria Sly, the cultural resources director; Richard Allen, the policy analyst for the Cherokee Nation;
? 176 Ellen Cushman and Erik Green
and Tonia Williams, the webmaster for the Nation. Our main task was to create a Web site that examined the kinds of rhetorical, literate, and legal struggles experienced by the Cherokees living in Indian Territory during the allotment period (roughly between 1887 and 1914). Gloria, Tonia, and Richard perceived a need for an in-depth and accessible understanding of the period, something that could be disseminated widely and could represent the com- plexity of competing perspectives at the time. They set this goal for the proj- ect in part because Oklahoma was poised to celebrate the anniversary of its statehood and was disseminating histories that de-emphasized the history of Indian Territory. The process of allotment, the individualization and privatiza- tion of land among Native peoples who had been removed to Indian Territory, was central to this history of the current state. They also set this goal because they considered the allotment period a time in the Cherokee Nation's history that was equally important to the Trail of Tears, though not often treated in published histories. The Multimedia Writing class I was teaching could pro- duce this history to be distributed as part of the educational resources cur- rently on the Cherokee Nation's site.
And so with their blessings, our class set about reading hundreds of pages of legislation, treaties, Senate reports, pioneer papers, and tribal histories as well as collecting and analyzing drawings, advertisements, documentaries, and photographs. Throughout spring 2005 we met with Tonia and Gloria as well as Ben Philips. Through videoconference and e-mail, we discussed our progress on interface design and content delivery, and secured their continued bless- ings on this work.
When engaging publics as rhetoricians, these students experienced keen pressure to produce historically accurate, publicly available multimedia edu- cational materials for an audience of Cherokee Nation Web site visitors (some 6,000 hits per day). The screenshot that opens this essay is of the entry portal to the educational resource that we created. The screenshot represents a culmi- nation of learning for students who developed their understandings of author- ship, ownership, and representation while working at the intersection of cultural, critical, and digital literacies. In this essay, we situate the story of the Cherokee Nation/MSU Collaborative within a praxis of new media. The kinds of composing students engaged in differed considerably from those they had done throughout their college writing experience, causing dissonance, exacer- bation, concern, and ultimately a class meltdown in willingness to continue with the work. Through open discussion, the leadership of three team pro- grammers (Erik was one), and the assurance that this kind of writing product and process is precisely what teams of knowledge workers experience on their job sites, students ultimately completed a project that the Cherokee Nation now hosts at www. cherokee. org/allotment. The entire process was stressful, intense, joyful, challenging, and demanding--everything, we think, learning should be.
Knowledge Work with the Cherokee Nation 177
While the culmination of learning represented in this screenshot is note- worthy, so, too, were the important lessons we gathered about the differences between authoring and representing a tribe's history and culture from this praxis of new media. Even though we initially strived to produce culturally relevant materials, we found that the Nation bounded the scope of the proj- ect as it became clearer to them what information about the tribe they wanted to be publicly available. This boundary between representations of the tribe's history and representations of its culture became apparent to us as we drafted content that was eventually deleted by the Nation's representatives. Ultimately, this screenshot represents one chapter in the Cherokee Nation's history, but it does not represent the tribe's cultural perseverance in the face of allotment. While this partnership and the specific learning outcomes it achieved may be unique and contingent, the intellectual framework that helped structure this learning might well be transportable to other contexts where students do knowledge work as rhetoricians.
The Cherokee Nation/MSU Collaborative
In collaboration with representatives of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma (CN), MSU students enrolled in Multimedia Writing, along with the instruc- tor, developed a Web site and CD titled The Allotment in Cherokee History 1887- 1914. 1 This collaboration began with a qualitative study of Cherokee language and identity that Ellen continues today. To begin this study, she attended the Cherokee National Holiday in 2004 and learned about the kinds of digital mediations the tribe was undertaking in order to reach its citizens who live away from the tribal cores in Oklahoma and North Carolina where the lan- guage is spoken and Cherokee traditions and religion are still practiced. Ellen learned that many people in the Nation were warm and inviting to citizens raised away from Oklahoma, especially since the CN has diverse needs for citi- zens with skills and education to contribute to the betterment of the tribe.
Fast forward to fall 2004: Ellen enrolled in Cherokee 1 taught by Ed Fields, whom she had also met at the National Holiday. At that time, Sammy Still was the course administrator and long-time insider to both the Eastern Band of the Cherokees and the CN. He and Ellen wrote e-mails often outside of class, exchanging stories and ideas for cultural preservation. Ellen asked if he thought maybe she and her students at MSU could do a multimedia project with and for the Cherokee Nation. He sent her to speak with Tonia Williams and Gloria Sly. To Tonia and Gloria, Ellen described some possible projects, and they saw a place where we could begin.
Together, the three of us agreed that educational materials about the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 were needed to show how this federal policy of parceling out Native Americans' commonly held land into individual units of private property has shaped current perspectives on Cherokee citizenship, identity, sovereignty, and the geographic dispersion of the tribe. 2 One of our
178 Ellen Cushman and Erik Green
aims was to recover stories of the allotment process from as many perspec- tives as possible, to extend the histories that were already told about and from the Nation, and to link these past events to the present. The Nation had three goals for this work:
satisfy the need for educational materials that present in-depth, accessible understanding of the allotment period in Cherokee history for any learner interested;
distribute widely these digital products to citizens of the tribe, educators, noncitizens of the tribe, and anyone who visits Tahlequah, Oklahoma, during the Cherokee National Holiday; and
relocate the typical histories of Oklahoma from the vantage point of Indian Territory.
The allotment period was a time in the tribe's history that was equally im- portant to the Trail of Tears, though not treated as often in published his- tories. The allotment era is important because it has shaped the Cherokees' current views on citizenship, identity, sovereignty, and the geographic disper- sion of the tribe. As is the case with most federal legislation in relation to Native peoples, this, too, was touted as an effort to "civilize" Native Ameri- cans; the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 and the Curtis Act of 1898 leg- islated that all Native American tribes were to split their commonly held land on reservations into individually owned private property. Land that was not allotted was then opened for "settlement. " This act was part of the larger story of "the Progressive Era" in U. S. history that included ideologies of manifest destiny, the great westward expansion, and taming the Wild West. U. S. his- tories of this time are usually told from the urban, eastern-seaboard vantage point--a perspective that looks from the U. S. East Coast outward toward the West, a vantage that sees "wildness," vast stretches of "unused land," and pas- sive, even welcoming, Indians. 3
Our work for this project tries to re-place the stories of allotment from the vantage of Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, where the Cherokee Nation is based in Tahlequah. This vantage relocates the story of the Progressive Era, showing the detrimental effects of allotment policy for the Cherokees in Indian Territory, who suffered an erosion of sovereignty, land holdings, and economic bases for their tribe, as well as forced assimilation through reedu- cation and dissolution of their tribal governments. This counternarrative is one that the CN wanted to present to their Web users, teachers, and students as a corrective to the myths of the Progressive Era narrative. We have presented this counternarrative with digital stories, cut-and-paste text, audio recordings, and images, as well as links to primary sources, such as legislation and public documents.
Since this site was launched at the 2005 Cherokee National Holiday, the chief's policy analyst, Richard Allen, joined Gloria, Tonia, and Ellen. The
Knowledge Work with the Cherokee Nation 179
project has grown to include an installment for the Nation's online history that explores the treaties and laws that shaped the tribe from the early 1700s up to the allotment. 4 Together with the MSU Writing in Digital Environments Research Center, this collaborative has exchanged files and collaborated on beta versions of projects through a jointly shared server space that Writing in Digital Environments (WIDE) maintains for our use. Throughout each semes- ter, our collaborative met twice through video conferencing provided by MSU's Writing Center using Avacaster software that the Nation provides to host its language classes. Ellen would then head to Tahlequah over the summer to work through final programming and editing, making necessary revisions to design and content. Though students were not privy to these meetings, their work was impacted by the decisions made at them.
The particular multimedia writing course we describe in this essay is not at all unique in that it has the typical layers of institutional, curricular, and social complexities that have been well documented in research on service learning in rhetoric and composition. 5 In particular, Nora Bacon has focused on the mismatch between the intellectual and rhetorical skills that students bring to class and those required to write in public contexts. She describes how difficult it is for students to learn the genres, content, and styles needed to write well in, for, and with community organizations, let alone being able to understand adequately the context and exigencies within which commu- nity organizations do their work. The central problem she identifies has to do with the extent to which students can really become immersed enough in the context of their work to develop a sense of authorship and valid representa- tions. Immersion in the content and context of work should not be mistaken for immersion in a culture.
Positive human relationships were the heart of it. A jock confessed what he learned from his coach, after he and his friends were laughing at a boy who could not catch the ball. "You never tease a fellow player. He's a part of your team! " Another jock confessed that while he likes to "show off in football to boost up" his self-esteem and confidence, it hurts him to hear people say, "You suck. " He realized that he does not have the self-esteem he thought he had, and moreover, that the true source of his confidence was not in sports, but in "becoming a scientist. " What he wrote about was that moment when he knew: looking through the microscope with one eye and, with the other, at a career in chemistry or gerontology. "In this writing," he confessed, "I am taking off the mask. " Like the girls who untangled themselves from gender expectations--LaVarsha Griffin wrote with some resignation, "People always expect me to clean up"--DeJohn separated himself from the masculinity he felt compelled to perform.
Publicity Effect
I had high hopes that these essays might stoke these stases in public dis- course, and so by the end of the summer, Malinoski and I created a book of the teens' writings that they chose to call Two Sides of a One Track Mind. This fit their sense of humor and, from my point of view, their dissoi logoi. Many months later, the book was published and distributed to the teens and their parents at an awards ceremony put together by Councilwoman McQuinn. Before that ceremony, which was in the fall, McQuinn released a few of the students' essays to the RTD as a press release about the workshop. And that created a middle space of some size and capacity.
Shebony Carrington Dear Friend,
I don't know where you live or what you do, but I do know this: you don't want to live where I live. You don't want to see what I see every day. I live in Fairfield Court and I am going to tell you how I feel about it.
It's true the houses are very nice looking. They just put new ovens in, and a while back they put in new refrigerators. But the place still isn't
Sophists for Social Change 167
168 David J. Coogan
? "Where I'm From to Where I'm Going. " Front page, Richmond Times Dispatch, August 12, 2005, reprintedby permission of the Richmond Times-Dispatch
right. Some of the houses are dirty, and they are only cleaned when it's time for inspection. After that, they go back to being dirty houses again. The people in my neighborhood don't take pride in how it looks.
Some people feel comfortable sitting on their porches, but now they can't because of the shooting and the crazy people around the neighbor- hood. No matter what happens, there are always people arguing. There are people that walk around the neighborhood looking stupid. In other words there are people who drink too much liquor and beer and walk around bent over, smelling like alcohol. That's not a good sight.
In my neighborhood there are some streets that are clean, but there are some streets that are nasty looking. The area that I live in is clean because there is always someone picking up the trash. On other streets there are just people who throw trash on the ground. There are some people that just sit around and drink and leave their beer bottles/cans on the ground. Another problem is the drug dealers. They sell drugs and urinate in front of the children. They just don't care what they do, so they're just going to do it.
I don't think that the negative things in my neighborhood are going to stop me from being what I want to be in life. I see the negative things in my neighborhood but I'm not involved in them. I feel that being on the outside of the situation looking inside makes me want to help peo- ple. I feel really bad because of the people that are being hurt and bruised from getting beat up. Just because I'm in the neighborhood around these
things, it doesn't mean that anything is going to stop me from accom- plishing my goal of being a doctor. When I grow up I want to become a General Practitioner. That is a doctor you go to for everyday needs like if you have a cold or if you are sick. I want to become a General Practitioner because I like to help other people. Darren Thomas, the preacher from the Temple of Judah told me, "To be somebody you have to help some- body. " So I'm going to be that person to help somebody.
What might be in my way from accomplishing this goal is my nega- tive attitude toward some situations. What I mean is that someone may come across the wrong way by getting smart with me or getting frustrated with me and I might not know what to do or say to them. Then, I might get an attitude with them. However that's not stopping me from being me. What I mean is that there are some people that expect me to be a young lady and not to play sports. They would rather see young ladies dress up and wear heels and also keep their hair and nails done. But me, I just want to be comfortable for myself. It doesn't matter how I look as long as I'm clean and comfortable. I am going to be me no matter what.
Media General, the owner of the newspaper, later told me that over 9,000 people read the essay online and that it got more hits than any other story in the entire history of the paper online. The editors had also created a blog where roughly 100 people wrote comments, nearly all of them positive. Read- ers responded well to this strong voice emanating from public housing. Of the ninety-six recorded comments, roughly one-third (twenty-four comments) addressed Shebony's placemaking directly. "You go, girl! " one of them wrote. "Don't let your present dictate your future! " Readers liked the idea of some- body beating the odds of doing well even in public housing. An even greater number of the readers (thirty-seven comments) liked Shebony's Christian sense of how to do it. Some did this simply by telling readers "this child is blessed" or by closing their note, "God's speed. " Others offered advice to the writer-- "I would like to say to Ms. Carrington, 'Trust God. ' He will be there for you as long as you have faith and trust in Him. " Readers carefully noted that Shebony had already taken good advice and praised the advice givers: "I also attend Temple of Judah," wrote one, "and its good to know that you took what the minister said and ran with it. "
The Christian discourse of redemption through service, along with the defiant appropriation of American bootstraps, warranted the otherwise harsh juxtaposition between herself and the "stupid people" who "just don't care" about the greater good of the community. Shebony does not choose to rise while her community slides, but to make her success her community's suc- cess. Ultimately, it is not the drug dealers or drunks that she worries about, then, but the people who spark an attitude in her: "There are some people that expect me to be a young lady and not to play sports. They would rather see young ladies dress up and wear heels and also keep their hair and nails done. "
Sophists for Social Change 169
170 David J. Coogan
Her own expectation, to be "clean and comfortable" and "to be me no mat- ter what," suggested a contemporary alternative that concretized as it gener- alized. Who doesn't want to be clean and comfortable? Who doesn't want to steer clear of unreasonable gender expectations? Who doesn't want to help somebody? Who doesn't want "to be me"? Hart-Davidson, Zappen, and Hal- loran, in their work with young African American teen writers in Troy, New York, noted a similar resistance to "traditional gender roles. " But they also saw them temper self-confidence "about themselves and their futures" with "contemporary social and family values," including those found in "the mass media. "28 In this rhetorical performance, however, just as it was in many of the others I discussed in the preceding section, Shebony cut through those commonplaces.
Not everyone was so sanguine about the power of self-determination and faith overcoming structural barriers. The remaining third of the commenta- tors shifted the ground away from Shebony and her situation to the difficult environment of Fairfield Court. One characterized "this young lady" as "just one example of what our City youth experience day to day. "
I hope that the city council members catch this article and Mayor Wilder. She is asking for some help. She may not have said help me, but she painted a picture of a young girl who does not want to be caught up in what she sees in her neighborhood. I too, as a youth in Richmond said that I would not involve myself in those negative things, but because I did not have stable parent figures in my life I lost that hope, because
I felt like nobody else cared. I care young lady. Peace and Blessings! ! !
In telling her story of getting involved in "negative things" and then regret- ting it, this commentator made a confession while also inventing a broader argument about teens in need of community guides ("stable parent figures"). Closing the note with "I care," the reader symbolically became that guide. This was part of a larger effort to make a middle space online, but to go beyond it, as we can see in the following comment.
I have four children who live in Northside. They did not grow up there, but chose to live there. What they have encountered to their dis- may is the attitude of city officials that if you live in Northside you have to expect trouble. The result of this attitude is there is no follow up on solving crime here. If young people such as the author of the letter pub- lished today wish to have opportunities in life, the problems on their street should take the same priority as in any other part of the city.
These accusations of civic neglect contrast rather loudly to the prior analy- ses that were premised on Christianity and American opportunity. What stands in the way of opportunity here are "city officials" who shrug their shoulders at crime and tell you to "expect trouble. "
Most readers, however, did not waste time debating who was really to blame. They offered to introduce Shebony to medical work through their jobs or their connections, recommended inspiring books, or more mysteriously offered to send gifts. Others generalized the need to help teens like Shebony, counseling readers that "any little thing will help, whether it is volunteering at the schools or giving small donations for school supplies. " Then, in what seemed like a conscious response to the title of Shebony's essay, one com- mentator exclaimed, "We may not live where she lives or have her experi- ences thus far in her young life but we can help change her environment. I for one will seek her out to help her stay on track to achieve her goals. There are some more out there. Who else will help? " A week later, Rob Rhoden, the pastor at Commonwealth Chapel, answered that call. 29 He invited Shebony to his church to read her essay aloud. Here is how Dena Sloan, in the RTD of August 15, 2005, describes the sequence of events: "On Friday afternoon, a local pastor called. Less than forty-eight hours later, Shebony was standing in a church she had never attended, Commonwealth Chapel in the Fan District, facing a crowd of about 150 strangers and reading her essay. . . . The church's pastor, a man Shebony had met just a few hours before, told her that people she doesn't know are setting up a fund for her education. The tall, thin girl seemed at once stunned and pleased at the whirlwind of developments. Wear- ing a soft, green jacket and skirt, and with her short hair in a tight ponytail, she greeted well-wishers after morning services yesterday. 'It's a very good thing,' she said quietly. "
At the time of this writing, Pastor Rhoden's congregation has raised $10,000. 30 The "whirlwind of developments" continued when Habitat for Hu- manity called to see if Shebony's family might qualify for a home. 31 Months later, Shebony won first prize at the banquet honoring the writers, which was organized by Councilwoman McQuinn and Ernestine Scott. That night she went home with a laptop.
Not all of these whirlwinds blew favorably, though. Lindsay Kastner, in a follow-up piece for the RTD, wrote that "in her own neighborhood response has been positive and negative. . . . Some people told her the essay brought tears to their eyes. But Shebony said neighborhood drug dealers also had something to say to her. . . . 'Some said you been talking about Fairfield, you been snitchin. '"32 Though Shebony did not name any names or even partic- ular places, the snitch reaction indicated that she had provocatively chal- lenged rhetorical decorum in her community, that her placemaking toward mainstream values like hard work, sobriety, and a respect for the law had threatened their move away from it. The RTD columnist Michael Paul Williams praised Shebony on these grounds for her "precocious courage . . . to break the code of silence" and dismissed the snitch reaction as something emanat- ing from a "confused code of ethics" condoning irresponsible behavior, ille- gal activity, exploitation, and violence. 33
Sophists for Social Change 171
172 David J. Coogan
In "Where I've Been, Where I'm Going," Shebony Carrington spoke out against her placement in the city, constructing a scene in which her charac- ter could exit. And that is just what she did. She left Fairfield Court rhetori- cally. Then, with the publication of her essay and the invitation from Pastor Rhoden, she left it physically. She did not do this because I had taught her how to uncover the truth, as I saw it. She did it because I had asked her to ori- ent herself to a reading public.
In these feel-good, Oprah moments, where we can easily see the link be- tween rhetorical cause and material effect, it may be tempting to confuse the sophistic framework that I have been elaborating here with the Angels Net- work. And while I am certainly proud to have been a part of a process that landed the girl a med-school scholarship (and later landed another student whose essay got into the paper a dance scholarship),34 I hope I have also shown that sophists, in their capacity as teachers, writers and community guides, do not use rhetoric to target change. They make middle spaces for placemaking and poetic world making. Then they get out of the way.
Notes
1. Nolan, "Statements. "
2. Nolan, "After Rape. "
3. Nolan, "Statements. "
4. Nolan, "Teens Charged. " 5. Cooper, "Four Teenagers. " 6. Nolan, "After Rape. "
7. For further information on Councilwoman McQuinn and her district, see http:// www. ci. richmond. va. us/citizen/city_gov/district7/accomplishments. aspx.
8. For further information on ACORN, see http://www. richmondneighborhoods. org/.
9. Walters, "City Plans. "
10. Coogan, "Counter Publics"; Coogan, "Community Literacy"; Coogan, "Service
Learning. "
11. Jarratt, Rereading the Sophists, 42.
12. Ibid. , 40-42.
13. Crowley and Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics, 109.
14. Cushman, "Rhetorician. "
15. Jarratt, Rereading the Sophists, 2.
16. McKerrow, "Critical Rhetoric. "
17. See the essay by Candace Rai in this volume for an extended critique of inclusiv-
ity in citywide forums.
18. Mathieu, Tactics of Hope.
19.
See Crowley and Hawhee, Ancient Rhetorics, chapters 3 and 4, for more on the
rhetorical technique of conjecture.
20. Goldblatt, "Alinksy's Reveille," 283.
21. McKnight, "Redefining Community," 117. 22. Marback, "Speaking of the City," 146.
23. Warner, Publics and Counterpublics, 122. 24. Ibid. , 114.
25. Ibid. , 87.
26. Ibid. , 68.
27. Hart-Davidson, Zappen, and Halloran, "On the
Formation," 135-37.
28. Ibid. , 135-36.
29. For more information on this church, see http://www. comchap. com/started. php.
30. Walters, "City Plans. "
31. Kastner, "Essayist. "
32. Kastner, "Youths' Essays Honored. "
33. Williams, "'Snitch' Shirts. "
34. MacDonald, who won second prize at the banquet and who also had his essay
published in the RTD, received a $360 scholarship for ballet lessons. According to Lind- say Kastner of the RTD, "Diontey's mother, Wanda McDonald Cooper, said she would not have been able to pay for his lessons. " Kastner, "Teen. "
Works Cited
Coogan, David. "Community Literacy as Civic Dialogue. " Community Literacy Journal 1 (2006): 95-108.
------. "Counter Publics in Public Housing: Reframing the Politics of Service Learning. " College English 67 (2005): 461-82.
------. "Service Learning and Social Change: The Case for Materialist Rhetoric" College Composition and Communication 57 (2006): 667-93.
Cooper, Alan. "Four Teenagers Sentenced in Rape on Probation at Time of Crime, They Get Roughly 30 Years Behind Bars. " Richmond Times Dispatch, July 20, 2005.
Crowley, Sharon, and Debra Hawhee. Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. 3rd ed. New York: Pearson Longman, 2004.
Cushman, Ellen. "The Rhetorician as an Agent of Social Change. " College Composition and Communication 47 (1996): 7-28.
Goldblatt, Eli. "Alinksy's Reveille: A Community Organizing Model for Neighborhood- Based Literacy Projects. " College English 67 (2005): 274-95.
Hart-Davidson, William, James P. Zappen, and S. Michael Halloran. "On the Formation of Democratic Citizens. " In The Viability of the Rhetorical Tradition, edited by Richard Graff, Arthur E. Walzer, and Janet M. Atwill, 125-40. New York: SUNY Press, 2005.
Jarratt, Susan C. Rereading the Sophists: Classical Rhetoric Refigured. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1991.
Kastner, Lindsay. "Essay: Where I'm From, Where I'm Going. " Richmond Times Dispatch, August 12, 2005.
------. "Essayist, 15, Grateful for Encouragement: Her Education Is Getting a Boost; Her Family May Qualify for Habitat. " Richmond Times Dispatch, August 27, 2005.
------. "Teen Steps Toward Goals: Art Center in Richmond Fosters Student's Love of Dance, Hopes for College. " Richmond Times Dispatch, January 9, 2006.
------. "Youths' Essays Honored: What Began as a Workshop in Summer Has Led to a Book Showcasing Their Work, Voices. " Richmond Times Dispatch, October 30, 2005. Marback, Richard. "Speaking of the City and Literacies of Place Making in Composition
Studies. " In City Comp: Identities, Spaces, Practices, edited by Bruce McComiskey and
Cynthia Ryan, 141-55. New York: SUNY Press, 2003.
Mathieu, Paula. Tactics of Hope: The Public Turn in English Composition. Portsmouth,
N. H. : Boynton/Cook, 2005.
Sophists for Social Change 173
174 David J. Coogan
McKerrow, Raymie. "Critical Rhetoric: Theory and Praxis. " In Contemporary Rhetorical Theory: A Reader, edited by John L. Lucaites, Celeste M. Condit, and Sally Caudill, 441-63. New York: Guilford Press, 1999.
McKnight, John. "Redefining Community. " In Writing and Community Action, edited by Thomas Deans, 116-22. New York: Longman, 2003.
McQuinn, Delores. "Teen Center Mission. " In East End Teen Center: "Bojangles Block" in Historic Church Hill. Richmond, Va. : East End Teen Center, 2004.
Nolan, Jim. "After Rape, a Long Healing Process: 4 Teens Will Be Sentenced Tomorrow in an Attack That Shocked the Community. " Richmond Times Dispatch, July 18, 2005. ------. "Statements Piece Together Rape. " Richmond Times Dispatch, November 13, 2004. ------. "Teens Charged in Park Attack: News of Arrests Cheers Local Residents Fright- ened After August Rape and Robbery. " Richmond Times Dispatch, September 10, 2004. Sloan, Dena. "'It's a Very Good Thing:' A Richmond Girl's Essay Prompts Church to
Fund Her Education. " Richmond Times Dispatch, August 15, 2005.
"Top 40 Under 40: Rob Rhoden, 36, Lead Pastor, Commonwealth Chapel. " Style Weekly,
September 27, 2006.
Walters, Brandon. "City Plans First Center for Teens. " Style Weekly, September 3, 2003. Warner, Michael. Publics and Counterpublics. New York: Zone Books, 2002.
Williams, Michael Paul. "'Snitch' Shirts Are a Sad Look. " Richmond Times Dispatch, Sep-
tember 5, 2005.
? Knowledge Work with the Cherokee Nation
The Pedagogy of Engaging Publics in a Praxis of New Media
Ellen Cushman and Erik Green
The Allottment Era in Cherokee History. Opening graphic for Cherokee Nation Web site at http://www. cherokee. org/allotment
In spring 2005 at Michigan State University (MSU), students enrolled in the Multimedia Writing class, including undergraduate Erik Green, along with instructor Ellen Cushman, produced an educational Web site in conjunction with representatives from the Cherokee Nation (CN): Gloria Sly, the cultural resources director; Richard Allen, the policy analyst for the Cherokee Nation;
? 176 Ellen Cushman and Erik Green
and Tonia Williams, the webmaster for the Nation. Our main task was to create a Web site that examined the kinds of rhetorical, literate, and legal struggles experienced by the Cherokees living in Indian Territory during the allotment period (roughly between 1887 and 1914). Gloria, Tonia, and Richard perceived a need for an in-depth and accessible understanding of the period, something that could be disseminated widely and could represent the com- plexity of competing perspectives at the time. They set this goal for the proj- ect in part because Oklahoma was poised to celebrate the anniversary of its statehood and was disseminating histories that de-emphasized the history of Indian Territory. The process of allotment, the individualization and privatiza- tion of land among Native peoples who had been removed to Indian Territory, was central to this history of the current state. They also set this goal because they considered the allotment period a time in the Cherokee Nation's history that was equally important to the Trail of Tears, though not often treated in published histories. The Multimedia Writing class I was teaching could pro- duce this history to be distributed as part of the educational resources cur- rently on the Cherokee Nation's site.
And so with their blessings, our class set about reading hundreds of pages of legislation, treaties, Senate reports, pioneer papers, and tribal histories as well as collecting and analyzing drawings, advertisements, documentaries, and photographs. Throughout spring 2005 we met with Tonia and Gloria as well as Ben Philips. Through videoconference and e-mail, we discussed our progress on interface design and content delivery, and secured their continued bless- ings on this work.
When engaging publics as rhetoricians, these students experienced keen pressure to produce historically accurate, publicly available multimedia edu- cational materials for an audience of Cherokee Nation Web site visitors (some 6,000 hits per day). The screenshot that opens this essay is of the entry portal to the educational resource that we created. The screenshot represents a culmi- nation of learning for students who developed their understandings of author- ship, ownership, and representation while working at the intersection of cultural, critical, and digital literacies. In this essay, we situate the story of the Cherokee Nation/MSU Collaborative within a praxis of new media. The kinds of composing students engaged in differed considerably from those they had done throughout their college writing experience, causing dissonance, exacer- bation, concern, and ultimately a class meltdown in willingness to continue with the work. Through open discussion, the leadership of three team pro- grammers (Erik was one), and the assurance that this kind of writing product and process is precisely what teams of knowledge workers experience on their job sites, students ultimately completed a project that the Cherokee Nation now hosts at www. cherokee. org/allotment. The entire process was stressful, intense, joyful, challenging, and demanding--everything, we think, learning should be.
Knowledge Work with the Cherokee Nation 177
While the culmination of learning represented in this screenshot is note- worthy, so, too, were the important lessons we gathered about the differences between authoring and representing a tribe's history and culture from this praxis of new media. Even though we initially strived to produce culturally relevant materials, we found that the Nation bounded the scope of the proj- ect as it became clearer to them what information about the tribe they wanted to be publicly available. This boundary between representations of the tribe's history and representations of its culture became apparent to us as we drafted content that was eventually deleted by the Nation's representatives. Ultimately, this screenshot represents one chapter in the Cherokee Nation's history, but it does not represent the tribe's cultural perseverance in the face of allotment. While this partnership and the specific learning outcomes it achieved may be unique and contingent, the intellectual framework that helped structure this learning might well be transportable to other contexts where students do knowledge work as rhetoricians.
The Cherokee Nation/MSU Collaborative
In collaboration with representatives of the Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma (CN), MSU students enrolled in Multimedia Writing, along with the instruc- tor, developed a Web site and CD titled The Allotment in Cherokee History 1887- 1914. 1 This collaboration began with a qualitative study of Cherokee language and identity that Ellen continues today. To begin this study, she attended the Cherokee National Holiday in 2004 and learned about the kinds of digital mediations the tribe was undertaking in order to reach its citizens who live away from the tribal cores in Oklahoma and North Carolina where the lan- guage is spoken and Cherokee traditions and religion are still practiced. Ellen learned that many people in the Nation were warm and inviting to citizens raised away from Oklahoma, especially since the CN has diverse needs for citi- zens with skills and education to contribute to the betterment of the tribe.
Fast forward to fall 2004: Ellen enrolled in Cherokee 1 taught by Ed Fields, whom she had also met at the National Holiday. At that time, Sammy Still was the course administrator and long-time insider to both the Eastern Band of the Cherokees and the CN. He and Ellen wrote e-mails often outside of class, exchanging stories and ideas for cultural preservation. Ellen asked if he thought maybe she and her students at MSU could do a multimedia project with and for the Cherokee Nation. He sent her to speak with Tonia Williams and Gloria Sly. To Tonia and Gloria, Ellen described some possible projects, and they saw a place where we could begin.
Together, the three of us agreed that educational materials about the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 were needed to show how this federal policy of parceling out Native Americans' commonly held land into individual units of private property has shaped current perspectives on Cherokee citizenship, identity, sovereignty, and the geographic dispersion of the tribe. 2 One of our
178 Ellen Cushman and Erik Green
aims was to recover stories of the allotment process from as many perspec- tives as possible, to extend the histories that were already told about and from the Nation, and to link these past events to the present. The Nation had three goals for this work:
satisfy the need for educational materials that present in-depth, accessible understanding of the allotment period in Cherokee history for any learner interested;
distribute widely these digital products to citizens of the tribe, educators, noncitizens of the tribe, and anyone who visits Tahlequah, Oklahoma, during the Cherokee National Holiday; and
relocate the typical histories of Oklahoma from the vantage point of Indian Territory.
The allotment period was a time in the tribe's history that was equally im- portant to the Trail of Tears, though not treated as often in published his- tories. The allotment era is important because it has shaped the Cherokees' current views on citizenship, identity, sovereignty, and the geographic disper- sion of the tribe. As is the case with most federal legislation in relation to Native peoples, this, too, was touted as an effort to "civilize" Native Ameri- cans; the Dawes General Allotment Act of 1887 and the Curtis Act of 1898 leg- islated that all Native American tribes were to split their commonly held land on reservations into individually owned private property. Land that was not allotted was then opened for "settlement. " This act was part of the larger story of "the Progressive Era" in U. S. history that included ideologies of manifest destiny, the great westward expansion, and taming the Wild West. U. S. his- tories of this time are usually told from the urban, eastern-seaboard vantage point--a perspective that looks from the U. S. East Coast outward toward the West, a vantage that sees "wildness," vast stretches of "unused land," and pas- sive, even welcoming, Indians. 3
Our work for this project tries to re-place the stories of allotment from the vantage of Indian Territory, now Oklahoma, where the Cherokee Nation is based in Tahlequah. This vantage relocates the story of the Progressive Era, showing the detrimental effects of allotment policy for the Cherokees in Indian Territory, who suffered an erosion of sovereignty, land holdings, and economic bases for their tribe, as well as forced assimilation through reedu- cation and dissolution of their tribal governments. This counternarrative is one that the CN wanted to present to their Web users, teachers, and students as a corrective to the myths of the Progressive Era narrative. We have presented this counternarrative with digital stories, cut-and-paste text, audio recordings, and images, as well as links to primary sources, such as legislation and public documents.
Since this site was launched at the 2005 Cherokee National Holiday, the chief's policy analyst, Richard Allen, joined Gloria, Tonia, and Ellen. The
Knowledge Work with the Cherokee Nation 179
project has grown to include an installment for the Nation's online history that explores the treaties and laws that shaped the tribe from the early 1700s up to the allotment. 4 Together with the MSU Writing in Digital Environments Research Center, this collaborative has exchanged files and collaborated on beta versions of projects through a jointly shared server space that Writing in Digital Environments (WIDE) maintains for our use. Throughout each semes- ter, our collaborative met twice through video conferencing provided by MSU's Writing Center using Avacaster software that the Nation provides to host its language classes. Ellen would then head to Tahlequah over the summer to work through final programming and editing, making necessary revisions to design and content. Though students were not privy to these meetings, their work was impacted by the decisions made at them.
The particular multimedia writing course we describe in this essay is not at all unique in that it has the typical layers of institutional, curricular, and social complexities that have been well documented in research on service learning in rhetoric and composition. 5 In particular, Nora Bacon has focused on the mismatch between the intellectual and rhetorical skills that students bring to class and those required to write in public contexts. She describes how difficult it is for students to learn the genres, content, and styles needed to write well in, for, and with community organizations, let alone being able to understand adequately the context and exigencies within which commu- nity organizations do their work. The central problem she identifies has to do with the extent to which students can really become immersed enough in the context of their work to develop a sense of authorship and valid representa- tions. Immersion in the content and context of work should not be mistaken for immersion in a culture.
