Favorite Ozarks Books – 9

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Bittersweet, education, Ellen Gray Massey, Foxfire, high school, Lebanon

I vividly remember the excitement many of us felt upon hearing of the Bittersweet project back in the ’70s. Modeled on the groundbreaking Foxfire project from the Appalachians, Bittersweet was a quarterly magazine of Ozarks folklore written by students from Lebanon High School and edited by their teacher, Ellen Gray Massey.

We loved getting Bittersweet in the mail, partly because of the delightful reminiscences and practical lessons in near-forgotten crafts from its elderly interview subjects, and partly because it was just as delightful to sense the excitement of the young authors as they learned about their community from people they otherwise would likely have ignored. I suspect some of those high-schoolers grew from that experience into careers as journalists, historians, or writers.

In later years, it was my good fortune to get to know Mrs. Massey, who had served as president of the Missouri Writers Guild some years before I did. I’ll confess to a little fan-boying when I met her for the first time.

So when I saw this collection of Bittersweet articles — the second, as Bittersweet Country was published first, in the late 1970s, while this one came out in 1985 — at the book table at the Ozarks Studies Symposium in West Plains, I knew I had to have it. I’ve been reading it in the past few weeks, enjoying the articles, some of which are the simple reflections of high school students suddenly discovering that their own landscape has cultural riches, and some of which are transcribed interviews from “old-timers” (undoubtedly gone now) who talk about their childhoods, their work life, their geography, their families, and anything else that prompts their fancy. It’s glorious to read their words in full Ozark dialect, written down just as they spoke them.

And yes, I’m sure a few of those expressions and stories will work their way into my next book.

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Civil War History Brought Home

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Civil War, Culver-Stockton, education, history, Patrick Hotle, Scott Giltner

Here’s a marvelous story from the Quincy Herald-Whig about my friend Scott Giltner and how he brings home the Civil War to his students. I’ve seen both Scott and his colleague Patrick Hotle teach; they’re exceptionally gifted, and the history department at Culver-Stockton College has long been one of its jewels.

We in the history-novel game often speak despondently about the lack of interest in history among the young; in some ways, it’s a natural phenomenon, as people’s interest in history grows as they become more a part of it themselves. But a good history teacher can spark that interest, and this article shows one good way of doing it—by bringing history home, helping students discover that history is not just a distant recitation of kings and armies, but something that happened in their own home town as well.

 

Favorite Ozarks People – 11

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art, Doug Pokorny, education, James Joyce, Ozarks, Piedmont, William Faulkner

Douglas Pokorny

I first met Doug Pokorny shortly after taking my first job out of college, as a reporter for the Wayne County Journal-Banner. Glen Tooke, one of the pressmen at the J-B, told me almost immediately, “You need to meet Doug Pokorny,” so I made a point of it.

What I found was one of the most original individuals I’ve ever known. Doug was born in Chicago but raised in Piedmont, and was at the time the proprietor of a little tavern outside of town called the Deerpath Inn. He and his mother, Georgie, made everyone welcome, from local intellectuals to loggers stopping by for a beer and a sandwich on their way home from a day in the woods. There was often a chess game going on the counter–I quickly learned that his chess skills were way out of my league.

Doug’s curiosity and somewhat unorthodox reputation were equally well known in the area. People brought him trivia questions, math problems, and atrocious jokes, all of which he welcomed with equal delight. But his real passion was language and literature. We had many fanciful nights talking Faulkner and Joyce.

As a result, Doug and I, with the enthusiasm only the young and foolish could muster, started a literary magazine, Ozark Review, with the help of Susan Davis, Spence Lyon, and Mary Frenzel, other literature-loving types in the area. To our amazement, we received grants from the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines and the Missouri Arts Council, and for a couple of years we published literary (and semi- or out-and-out nonliterary) works from a wide variety of Ozark writers. We held poets’ picnics and found ourselves featured in statewide media.

I returned to Columbia for graduate work, and Doug left the Deerpath to go into teaching. For many years he was the inspiration (and terror) of legions of Clearwater High School English students, who, I suspect, never knew quite what to make of him, and thus let him work his high-energy insanity and allowed his insatiable love of knowledge to infect them. How he managed to survive in the bureaucracy of a school system is a testament to the intelligence of the people within that system!

Now in retirement, Doug continues to learn and to teach in his own way, devouring ancient languages and posting prolifically on Facebook–but his posts, unlike most of our own sadly humdrum concerns, are almost entirely devoted to celebrating the beauties of art, nature, and the human spirit. He inundates my news feed with odd glories gleaned from the corners of the earth. Every so often, a former student posts thanks on his page for having stunned him into an insight in some unusual fashion–whether by reciting the entirety of “Ladle Rat Rotten Hut” from memory or by stopping a class commotion by putting the stapler to his own forehead.

Out-of-Body Experience

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books, Civil War, Columbia, creativity, education, Missouri, Slant of Light, writing

Over my career, I’ve taught thousands of students and used dozens of books in my classes. But it was a new experience for me to walk into a classroom and see all the students with my book! Dr. Anne Mack of the University of Missouri is using it in her English classes, and the students are discussing its literary themes as well as using it as a gateway to research about the Civil War, the Nineteenth Century, and other issues.

I found myself unable to answer many of the students’ questions. Why does Mattie Cunningham only have one arm? Why did Character X have to die in that chapter? I don’t know, it just felt right. I wasn’t trying to be evasive with them. It’s just that my creative process are very intuitive and instinctual, and I rarely have a logical reason for a lot of plot details other than “it felt right.” The story developments that have an analytical reason for being are often the weakest ones.

At the end of each class, I signed books for the students, and it was a particular pleasure to sign the ones that were heavily scribbled in, dog-eared, and festooned with sticky notes. There were a couple of suspiciously pristine copies, but oh well.

Major Website Update!

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creativity, education, human nature, teachers, writing

I generally use my website for relatively “static” information – things that won’t change rapidly and only occasionally need updating. This blog, my Facebook page, and my Twitter feed are where I put breaking news.

So I want to mention that the website has a whole new section! It is specifically for teachers. I’ve been getting some great feedback from college instructors who are using Slant of Light in their classes, and my friend Alexis Engelbrecht-Villafane has put together a comprehensive teachers’ guide to the book. Alexis’ background is in English education at the pre-college level, so the teachers’ guide follows the format typically used for books to be used in high school classrooms.

We agree that Slant of Light poses some issues for the typical high school instructor. It has offensive language, graphic violence, sexual encounters, and adult situations – just the sort of stuff that would invite a parent complaint. But as a choice selection (not a required reading) for an advanced class, it would be a great option. It deals with big themes from start to finish, and it is an excellent introduction to the atmosphere of pre-Civil War America. (Sorry to toot my own horn so energetically here.)

Take a look!

Quote of the day

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education, quotes, Tracy Kidder, writing

Watching all the teachers at my school labor over their final grades and agonize over their students’ performance, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes of all time, from Tracy Kidder’s Among Schoolchildren:

“Good teachers put snags in the river of children passing by, and over the years, they redirect hundreds of lives. Many people find it easy to imagine unseen webs of malevolent conspiracy in the world, and they are not always wrong. But there is also an innocence that conspires to hold humanity together, and it is made of people who can never fully know the good that they have done.”