Enter the Conversation
by Scott Inguito
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Reading is the single most important factor in determining a student's success in college, according to a recent ACT study. And according to the same study, strong, active readers are found everywhere. They cut across ethnic and socio-economic lines. What this suggests to those of us involved in writing, publishing and teaching contemporary literature is that new literature is not only pleasurable to a diverse body of communities, it has the capacity to strengthen a student's ability to succeed in college and in the wider world. As an educator at both university and community college, I have found no better substitute for opening wide the gates of reading to students than teaching work by local, contemporary authors. In addition, when a writer can visit a classroom it is quite an amazing transformation for students. We are lucky in the Bay Area: SPD provides excellent contemporary books and the greater Bay Area provides excellent writers. Because SPD's books are from all over the country, this kind of good fortune—having great books by local writers easily available—is possible nationwide!
My interest in reaching first-generation college students is greatly aided by having access to books by contemporary authors. First-generation college students often enter a university or community college without having read an entire book, much less a creative work such as a novel or collection of poetry. Bringing an author into the class sends a strong message to the students: "You are valued as intellectuals and you are worth the writer's time." Such a statement, although not explicit, has the potential to change the tenor of a student's educational trajectory. Instead of college and reading being an idea and activity outside herself, that is, something in opposition, like an obstacle to her development as a person, she becomes an actor in the larger conversation going on in writing. In essence, she enters and affects the various conversations that occur in contemporary literature. In addition, my philosophy is that students are not containers to be filled or blank slates to be written upon, but rather they are potential participants in an on-going conversation about literature and ideas.
Teaching at public colleges, I encounter many second-language learners from various countries. Second-language learners are often at particular risk when acculturating to a new language and educational system. Bringing in locally produced writing, and sometimes an author, into the class personalizes the experience of literature like nothing else. It makes a connection between author and student that creates an immediate, palpable conversation. In essence, it opens the dialogue to self-authorship from the student, a much needed and powerful experience for students entering college. When a student reads an author's work, and has access to that author, such an experience engages a student in making meaning on two fronts. First, a student "speaks" for the author when she reads the work, re-construing the text through the process of reading; in essence, re-authoring the text. Secondly, locally produced writing invites and challenges a student to connect to her experience. Moreover, such an experience opens a door into a community of writers. Not only does this develop esteem in a student, it also welcomes her into a local conversation that she may have not entered previously. When I bring a Bay Area author into the classroom I feel the energy change in the room. As I stated above, first-generation students may never have read all of a text in their entire high-school careers. The very fact that they are now engaged in a conversation with a text and its author, sharing perspectives and interpretations, (consciously engaging in producing meaning in their lives through literature), students gain esteem, intellectual facility, and empowerment to continue to acculturate to an academic world that is often at odds with their own experience.
We can't have a new generation of writers without a new generation of readers—and these readers are often right in front of us waiting to enter the conversation.
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