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I am continually fascinated by the way that thoughts grow and resurface into fully-fledged ideas. I find that often, my thoughts begin not in words, but as a feeling, a small reactionary twinge in my gut. I’ve learned to listen to these reactions, to remember them even if I don’t always immediately understand them. Sometimes it will be months, or even years, before I can articulate what they mean or see the direction that an idea might grow into. In this case, the idea that I am currently contemplating first wedged itself in my brain several months ago, while we were reading the Twelve Tribes of Hattie at Riverside. The “twinge” I felt then was in reaction to our choice to read a text that took place in Philadelphia. I remember feeling that this was somehow important; that this connection formed by a shared sense of place between a historical fiction and a current day prison in Philadelphia could be useful to us in planning lessons. Not knowing quite yet how to grow this observation further, I simply stored it in the back of my mind, knowing the right time would come along. This past week, I was speaking with a close friend about her work with a professor in cataloguing the architectural history of Rittenhouse Square. As she was describing the work, I began to see the outline of a course that focused on mapping individual and collective memory in the city of Philadelphia through literature, personal writing, and history. I felt the same twinge that had been sparked by the Twelve Tribes of Hattie; I suddenly knew why I found it so important to store away that feeling. Thinking as I write now, I realize that my interest in the relationship between memory and place has existed for even longer than my recognition that this relationship could be beneficial to our Riverside group. My first or second paper for Jody this past semester ("just look for the cow mailbox") contemplates this explicitly, “…my strong value in the connective potential that place can hold draws me in to these conversations, allows me to explore the ways in which place becomes infused with memory, and memory allows the present reality to reach into the past. These questions…show me how important it is develop a sense of place that goes beyond what you physically see in the present light. It is…a means of becoming more connected...”

I found myself planning this class curriculum as though it was a 360 with three courses. The courses I had envisioned would be an English Course, an Architecture and/or Cities course, and possibly a Sociology course. Studying the city and its buildings can hopefully lead us into conversations about socioeconomic status, class, and race. The history of Philly’s architectural shifts could show us who lives where, and why. In her lecture this past semester, Dorceta Taylor pointed to many instances in city building and planning that highlight poorer communities that are taken advantage of; we could also use research like this to look at issues of poverty and race in the city that might be relevant to our students. Another thought I had was that this could also turn our focus back on prison itself; through studying prison architecture, the placement of prisons within cities, and contemplating why some schools might look like prisons.

Studying Philadelphia through these lenses could open students up to writing their own personal histories with the city and their environment. Additionally, focusing on place itself could be useful in developing the descriptive quality of student’s writing. Using visuals of buildings and studying architecture could teach observational skills that I find can make writing come alive. I envisioned doing activities such as picture writing prompts, where student are given a picture and asked to write a story or response invoked by the image. I think learning to communicate through description in this way could be particularly beneficial to students that we have worked with at Riverside.  We could read a variety of texts, both fiction and non-fiction, starting with early writings and working our way through time to present works of writing. Several years ago I took a community college course in early American literature. We read many historical accounts that detailed the founding of the United States. Initially, I assumed I would be bored by this, but ultimately found myself fascinated by what these accounts revealed; they outlined the beginnings of our collective perception of what it meant to have an American identity. I found that these influential writers were starting to shape our cultural understanding and meaning of words like “independence,” “individual,” and “self-made.” Starting with works like these could set up our group to trace cultural perceptions through time to better understand how strongly we are affected by history and memory. I found an interesting site called Philly Fiction that publishes collections of stories that all take place in present day Philadelphia. I immediately thought of using something like this for reading material as well, because not only do the stories center around Philly but they provide us with writing outside the more conventional texts we might use (in reference to our continual debate about using texts such as The Color Purple, out of concern that it is over-used).

I have much more to say about all this, but I’m losing steam so I am going to bullet point some final thoughts with the intention of returning to them:

*Thought that studying Philly bring our students at Riverside outside the Prison

*Black Girl White Girl by Joyce Carol Oates might a text we could use… I’ve never read it but I know it takes place at a small liberal arts college in the suburbs of Philly during 70s (supposedly it’s similar to Bryn Mawr)

*Architecture also inevitably leads us back to walls….