{"id":234,"date":"2014-09-07T20:53:02","date_gmt":"2014-09-07T20:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/?p=234"},"modified":"2023-05-24T17:57:24","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T17:57:24","slug":"students-tell-their-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.wabash.edu\/magazine\/2014\/09\/07\/students-tell-their-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Students Tell Their Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Listen to Houston Hodges: “This I Believe”<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Honest. Revealing. Spontaneous. Surprising.<\/p>\n

Even brave.<\/p>\n

All ways to describe the works that students produced in Audio Rhetoric and Creative Writing.<\/p>\n

Yet hardly a word in the course was written.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I first began teaching public speaking at Wabash I was struck by the fact that the students who had natural affinities for and abilities in public speaking weren\u2019t necessarily the students who were great writers,\u201d says Assistant Professor of English Jill Lamberton, who created the cross-listed English and rhetoric course and taught it for the first time last spring. \u201cSo much of college privileges students who are great writers, and less of it those who are good speakers. This course expanded that other set of skills and encouraged students to think and communicate that way.\u201d<\/p>\n

An avid National Public Radio listener, Lamberton introduced students to radio programs many of them had never heard of:\u00a0This American Life, Story Corps, This I Believe, Radio Lab, the Moth Radio Hour.<\/em>\u00a0They listened to audio essays by David Sedaris, Wallace Stegner, Jackie Robinson, and Edward R. Murrow, among others. They recorded their own\u00a0This I Believe<\/em>\u00a0essays and\u00a0StoryCorps-<\/em>type interviews on iPads, recalled their first experience learning to read, and edited final projects that brought together their newfound skills of speaking and audio editing.<\/p>\n

But first they had to be quiet. For seven days at the beginning of the semester, each student kept a sound journal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey spent seven days paying attention to the sounds around them, and almost every one of them said something like, \u2018These sounds are going on all around us and I\u2019d never thought about them or what they mean.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Lamberton is pleased that students embraced the projects.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m especially proud of the guys who went to their families and recorded their grandmother\u2019s voice, or their dad\u2019s voice, or asked questions they\u2019d never asked before, because I think having that family oral history is very important.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne student discovered that his dad, whose job involves a lot of delivery, had received news of the Kennedy assassination, 9\/11, and the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion all on the radio. One student interviewed his mom about music and its large role in her family. He came back laughing, saying, \u2018My mom couldn\u2019t remember her wedding song.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I\u2019m proud that they started to tell their own stories. Andy Carpenter is a four-time cancer survivor, and he had not spent much time telling that story in his own words or asking family what his illnesses were like for them. In this class he decided to do a couple of projects about having cancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior Spencer Burk recorded the \u201cSounds of Wabash,\u201d as sort of a farewell project before his graduation, and several students interviewed favorite teachers or coaches.<\/p>\n

Lamberton describes senior John Penn\u2019s final project:<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s one of five seniors who played on the baseball team all four years, and he imagined his project as a recruiting podcast for prospective baseball players. An announcer introduces him and his teammates as their walk-up songs play in the background, then each senior reflects on life as a Wabash student and baseball player\u2014it\u2019s very creative and a fond farewell.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had so many seniors, so it was a nice way to say goodbye to Wabash. But I think all of the guys did projects that meant a lot to them.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents in the 21st century are going to have to compose in more ways than writing, so I thought that telling a story, recording, and audio editing were skills they needed to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u2026It took me forever to calm down, and\u00a0when I did, I started to think,<\/em>Why did this happen? Was it because I wasn\u2019t ready? Because we weren\u2019t ready?<\/p>\n

Even as my own dreams and aspirations were being renewed, I truly wasn\u2019t happy. Something I had created was no longer going to be brought into the world.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

It was an eye-opening experience. Before I had made decisions on impulse, searching for pleasure. Now I realized how naive and truly dumb I was. Now, with a second chance,\u00a0I realize the great things I can accomplish, and I live every day with a purpose and a smile on my face.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019m lucky in a sense: I\u2019ve been through some tough situations and I\u2019m better off because of it. So when the time comes and I actually have a child, I\u2019ll be ready.<\/em><\/p>\n

Yeah\u2014I\u2019ll be ready.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u2014from a recording by Houston Hodges \u201915, for the\u00a0<\/em>This I Believe\u00a0assignment for Audio Rhetoric<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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