OurStory

Hanna Aven

ENGL 479 Writing Practicum

Lee University Writing Professors

9 December 2013

Contents

English Majors: Trained for Life……………………………………………………..……………………. 1

OurStory………………………………..………………………………..………………………………………….. 3

Seeking a Greater Story………………………………..………………………………..……………. 5

Empower the Storyteller………………………………..………………………………..………….. 9

Tell the Story……………………………..………………………………..…………………………..... 11

Embody the Subject………………………………..…………………………………………………. 14

Sharing to Inspire Change………………………………..………………………………..………………. 16

The Non-Fiction Pieces………………………..………………………………..…………………... 17

The Genre Piece………………………………..………………………………..…………………… 20

The Trip………………………………..………………………………..………………………………………… 20

The First Trip………………………………..………………………………..………………………… 20

The Second Trip………………………………..………………………………..…………………….. 22

The Next Six Years of Trips………………………………..………………………………………. 23

The Final Trip Paradigm………………………………..………………………………..………… 24

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English Majors: Trained for Life

On the WordPress blog “For English Majors,” guest writer Anthony Garcia discusses

post-undergraduate job opportunities for graduates with degrees in English. He recalls that

upon completing his graduate education in English Literature he was constantly questioned

by his community: “They seemed to be challenging me when they asked ‘what are you

going to do with that?’ to say, ‘what are you going to contribute to society?’.” Throughout

my own career as an English major, I have become too familiar with this and other

questions about my discipline’s legitimacy.

Although English majors are subject to experiencing periods in which they doubt

their degree choices, research proves that this uncertainty is unnecessary. Even though

unemployment rates are currently at a high, a study done by Georgetown University

reveals that the unemployment rate of recently graduated English majors is not much

different from those of students who hold degrees in more “practical” subjects.

Immediately after school, English and History majors experienced 9.8

percent and 9.5 percent unemployment, respectively…Meanwhile, in

computer science, which is regularly talked about as if it's the single most

practical major a young person can choose these days, graduates are still

starting at 8.7 percent joblessness.

In the face of questions about future careers, English majors might reply that their plight is

no different than that of thousands of other graduates nationwide. Furthermore, they may

rebut these questions with explanations of the English graduate’s versatility.

As Garcia explains in his blog post, the English degree prepares its students with “a

highly valued skill set that can be used in almost any career.” This argument is confirmed by the

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optimism of Steve Strauss, President and Founder at The SelfEmployed, as he explains why he

hires English majors. In his blog on the Huffington Post, he says that English majors are smart,

bold, have an excellent ability to write, and are easy to work with: “For my money (literally and

figuratively), for my needs, and I suggest the needs of most small businesses, English majors are

easily the top choice when it comes to getting the type of teammate who can make us all

better...” Graduate job statistics reveal that Strauss is not the only employer who thinks

positively about the English major.

Research gathered by English professor Dr. Kevin Brown of Lee University reveals

that even English majors from small liberal arts universities can and will find jobs in a

number of different career fields. He conducted a survey of individuals who graduated from

Lee University with a Bachelor of Arts in English between 1965 and 2011. He collected 35

responses. From these he determined that although many graduates did attend graduate

school in a field related to English or immediately began a career in a field related to

English, nearly 40% of the graduates spent their time doing other forms of work. These

“other” graduates reported pursuing education in another field or beginning careers in

public relations, the music industry, ministry, business, and more. These graduates report

having entered the English degree program intending to pursue careers in the English field

but discovered their passion for working in other fields as they pursued their reading and

writing skills. With these statistics in mind, English majors can be confident that, for them,

finding a career is not the primary issue that needs be addressed.

In his essay on the “ideal” English major, Dr. Mark Edmundson of the Unversity of

Virginia explains that the true quest of English majors is not to find a career, but to become

better people. He argues that the ideal form of an English major is personified in

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individuals who are dedicated to a “love for language, hunger for life, openness and a quest

for truth.”

We're talking about a way of life. We're talking about a way of living that

places inquiry into how to live in the world--what to be, how to act, how to

move through time--at its center. What we're talking about is a path to

becoming a human being, or at least a better sort of human being than one

was at the start. An English major? To me an English major is someone who

has decided, against all kinds of pious, prudent advice and all kinds of fears

and resistances, to major, quite simply, in becoming a person.

Throughout their years of undergraduate studies, English majors will spend their time

pondering literature and crafting their own. As they do so, they will ultimately develop an

artillery of skills that will be valuable in any career field. Furthermore, they will grow

closer to being able to excellently discuss truth, life, and humanity.

OurStory

OurStory is an organization that offers undergraduate English students an

opportunity to immerse themselves in the act of becoming better students and explore

their passions for language, life, openness and truth. This opportunity will exist in the form

of a mission trip through a small Christian mission organization. During this trip, OurStory

students will spend time getting to know some of the people group that the mission

supports. They will do this by participating with the individual in his or her daily activities

as well as by conducting interviews with these individuals. Students will then utilize their

mastery and love of language to craft a series of short non-fiction pieces based on the

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stories told by the individuals they interview. The pieces will serve as a window into the

lives and experiences of the people they depict and will allow for audiences to easily feel a

connection with the stories’ subjects. These short pieces will be given to the mission

organization, which will utilize them to promote the sponsorship of their program.

Additionally, OurStory students will be given the opportunity to craft a work of art

in their chosen genre that will represent the people and experiences that they encounter

while spending time at the mission. OurStory students will workshop each other’s genre-

specific pieces at a writers’ retreat at the close of the trip. The students may present their

completed pieces to the mission organization they worked with, choose to use the work for

their own purposes, or both.

This process will help students carve out time from their busy lives to write, and it

will introduce them to foreign places. It will help create an English major who has a strong

ability to read a situation and develop stories and character. OurStory students will be

taught to recognize and develop common themes all while crafting works of art that

connect their audiences to the stories’ subjects. This art will encourage audiences’

understanding of the stories’ subjects as more than a single story of poverty or need.

This work will not only benefit OurStory students and the mission organization; it

will also empower the individuals who are being written about and connect audiences to

them. As they learn to elevate others by telling their stories, OurStory students will become

more “ideal” English majors as they promote the commonalities that exist between

humankind and tear down harmful stereotypes.

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Seeking a Greater Story

OurStory proposes that in order for English students to better themselves as people,

they must first cultivate an understanding of what it means to be human. This means that

they must look outside of themselves and identify commonalities and universal truths that

they may not have otherwise noticed. Because English majors spend their educational

career developing the skills of identifying themes and patterns, analyzing characters, and

searching for meaning, they possess a unique ability to step outside of their preconceived

notions and examine new ones. If OurStory students adopt this discipline, they will better

be able to understand what it means to be human, and in turn will have the ability to create

more truthful and poignant narratives than they might if they looked inward for

inspiration. OurStory will encourage its writers to discover and expose stories by training

them that every person is made up of a multitude of stories. Although it is natural for

people to stereotype or simplify their understanding of others, evaluating humanity based

off of these singular forms of ideas is dangerous. In her 2009 TED Talk, Nigerian author

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explained the dangers of the “single story.”

When Adichie moved from Nigeria to the United States to attend university, she was

stereotyped by her colleagues. Because they knew so little about Nigeria, they asked her

about her “tribal” music, assumed that she did not know how to use a stove, and were

surprised at her English proficiency. Laughing, Adichie explained to her audience that she

surprised her peers by presenting them with her Mariah Carrie records, her knowledge of

the stove, and her extensive English vocabulary. She explained that these individuals’

singular understanding of Nigeria had poorly affected the ways that they understood her as

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an individual. Although Adichie’s life in Nigeria did include a series of tragedies, she told

her audience that these “single stories” were unable to describe everything about her.

All of these stories make me who I am, but to insist only on these negative

stories is to flatten my experience and to overlook the many other stories

that formed me. The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with

stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They

make one story become the only story. (13:00 Adichie)

Adichie admitted that she is not only a victim of the single story, but also a culprit of

producing it. When she was a child, her family employed a poor boy to do their housework.

She explained that she felt an “enormous pity” towards his poverty. She was amazed,

therefore, when she visited the house boy’s home and saw a beautiful basket that the his

brother had created: “I was startled. It had not occurred to me that anyone in his family

could actually make something” (4:00). Because she had only heard about how poor this

boy’s family was she believed that it was “impossible” to think of them as anything other

than poor.

Adichie believes that when more stories are told about a person, his or her life can

be impacted: “stories can break the dignity of a people, but they can also repair that broken

dignity” (17:51 Adichie). In order to restore dignity to people, storytellers must work to

eradicate the “single story.” Rather than confining people to a narrowing definition,

storytellers must work to represent as many aspects of a person’s story as possible.

Northwest Haiti Christian Mission (NWHCM) is an organization that is currently

utilizing its advertising and sponsorship campaigns to represent the missions’ multiple

stories rather than the poor state of the Haitian people. John Black, the organization’s

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media director said that he desires to promote the mission’s work by giving current and

potential sponsors a more realistic idea of what occurs at the mission. This desire has been

actualized in NWHCM’s Family Tree Project. The project connects the mission’s current

sponsors with each other and provides them with regular updates about the individuals

and programs that they financially sponsor. It also provides current and potential sponsors

with information about and updates on the people that the mission works with. This aspect

of the project is currently in its early developmental stages, but it has the potential to

permanently erase “single stories” from NWHCM’s rhetoric.

On their website’s homepage, NWHCM has listed every individual that can be

sponsored through their programs. Clicking on a thumbnail photograph of these people

leads the site’s visitors to a page dedicated to that individual. A large photograph of the

person is displayed and a scrolling news feed records any Facebook activity that has to do

with that person. Whenever NWHCM’s missionaries work with or photograph that person,

they update the feed. The posts are generally upbeat. For example, one displays a picture of

an orphan named Betty with a paintbrush in her hand: “Betty singing and helping paint the

orphanage.” Another shows a picture of a woman at the elderly care center, sitting in her

rocking chair with a smug smile on her face: “Verselia is all dressed up today and looking

elegant as always.” These small glimpses of life at the mission are a much different image

than the kind oftentimes advertised by other mission organizations.

Instead of focusing on the Haitians’ emaciated figures or tragic environment, the

Family Tree Project captures the personalities of the people it supports and gives them a

multi-storied dimensionality. Black explained that although he has seen many mission

organization focus their advertisements on starvation and poverty, he feels that this type of

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rhetoric is simply not conducive to a healthy sponsor-sponsee relationship: “People are

drawn to joy,” he explained. He suggested that joy might be the key to recruiting sponsors

who will commit themselves to long-term sponsorship and relationship with their sponsee.

He said that by adjusting the focus of the marketing technique to exemplify positive

aspects of people’s lives or their experiences, mission organizations can shift the reason a

person gives and generate a sustainable desire to give that is based on partnership and

hope rather than guilt and sorrow. Black suggested this desire could be cultivated by

providing potential sponsors with details about the people they are giving to.

Because the project is in its early stages, and because NWHCM does not have enough

time or manpower to gather the necessary stories, such details are scarce. According to

Black, the project is merely in need of writers who will dedicate themselves to learning

about the mission and the people it supports and then writing about what they learn. The

pieces written by these writers could stand alongside the currently scarce Facebook feeds

on NWHCM’s webpages and tell current and potential sponsors a little more about the

individual that they might build a partnership with.

OurStory plans to be the solution to NWHCM’s need as well as the need of multiple

other small, Christian mission organizations. It will send its students to write stories. As

OurStory’s students record the stories of the individuals they meet throughout their trip,

they will join the fight against the single story by crafting stories that focus on a more

holistic view of people. This process will provide mission organizations with useful written

material, and allow English majors to learn more about their craft as they quest for truth.

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Empower the Storyteller

In addition to benefiting mission organizations and English majors, the process that

OurStory catalyzes will also benefit the individuals who have their stories told. Research

has proven that healing of an individual can occur when a person is given the opportunity

to be respected and understood as the authoritative storyteller. Psychologists have taken

their knowledge of the importance of a storyteller and listener relationship and turned it

into a form of therapy referred to as “narrative therapy.” In their book Narrative Means to

Therapeutic Ends, therapists Michael White and David Epston explain that this therapy

revolves around patients telling stories about their lives. As the patients externalize their

stories, they become able to look at their narrative from an outside perspective. From this

new vantage point, they can examine their habituated understanding of the issues they

face: “…they are able to experience a sense of personal agency; as they break from their

performance of their stories, they experience a capacity to intervene in their own lives and

relationships” (Epston 16).

While administering this form of therapy, therapists ask their patients questions

about the stories they tell and encourage them to identify possible alternative outcomes for

the narratives. As the patients begin to discuss their experiences in light of possible

positive outcomes, the new stories gain power over previously told stories. This power

enhances the subject’s feeling of control over their situation and empowers them to leave

behind narrow understandings of their plights.

Dr. Phil Barker and social worker Poppy Buchanan-Barker explain another reason

for utilizing this method of therapy.

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By revering the storyteller we begin to appreciate the person’s hidden

depths, acknowledging that – given the vast ocean of the person’s experience

– we can only ever hope to know a tiny amount of who and what they are, as

persons. Knowing patients is fairly easy, since we have a pre-formed

template in our head, informed by diagnosis or theory. People are,

metaphorically, a quite different kettle of fish. (Barker 19)

In order to better learn about the storyteller as a person rather than a patient,

administrators of narrative therapy must refrain from allowing diagnosis to affect the ways

they listen to their patients’ stories. When therapists separate their preconceived notions

about the patient from the stories that their patients tell, they allow room for different and

possibly unheard stories to be told, thus enhancing the storytellers’ feelings of personal

agency.

According to White and Epston, an individual’s sense of personal agency is further

enhanced when he or she is listened to. The opportunity to entertain an audience

reinforces a person’s feelings of importance and control over their story. Furthermore,

telling the story to an audience allows the storytellers to reflect upon their stories as

narratives that can be described in a variety of ways. As people tell their stories, they can

gauge their audience’s reaction to it, consider alternative ways of speaking of themselves

and their stories, and change the way they discuss and ultimately understand their

experiences. By providing mental healthcare patients with a space where they feel safe to

tell and retell their stories, therapists who utilize narrative therapy allow the patient to

speak as a multi-faceted human rather than the face of a diagnosis. This opportunity

empowers the storytellers to realize that they have control over their story. Furthermore,

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the process allows the listener to recognize the speaker as a human being rather than a

mere patient.

OurStory plans to accomplish some of the outcomes of narrative therapy by

teaching its students to utilize an interview process that will foster a space in which the

interviewees can tell their stories comfortably and ultimately recognize how important

their stories are.

Tell the Story

While OurStory’s interview process will immediately impact and empower the

interviewees, a greater good will result when the listener relays the stories to a larger

audience. OurStory’s students will take the narratives they learn from their interviewees

and tell the narratives themselves. In order to preserve and accurately portray the truths

revealed in the interview, the storytellers must ensure that they present their audiences

with images of the interviewees rather than an image of themselves. Because OurStory’s

students will eventually turn their interviews into written documents, they will be

instructed to conduct their interviews in the style of an ethnographer.

Ethnographers are anthropologists who represent people groups through the

written word. In order to ensure that their written word accurately expresses the thoughts,

beliefs, and actions of their subject group, ethnographers focus intently on the idea of the

“other.” Ethnographers practice quieting their own voices and thoughts for the duration of

the ethnographic process to ensure that they will record the story of the person being

interviewed rather than their personal account and opinions of an interview they

conducted.

This mindset begins when the artist immerses himself in the world of the individual

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they interview. According to anthropologists Robert M. Emerson, Rachel I. Fretz, and Linda

L. Shaw in their book Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes, immersing oneself in another’s

culture is the first step to grasping that person’s experience as “meaningful and important.”

With immersion, the field researcher sees from the inside how people lead

their lives, how they carry out their daily rounds of activities, what they find

meaningful, and how they do so. In this way immersion gives the fieldworker

access to the fluidity of others’ lives and enhances his sensitivity to

interaction and process. (Emerson 2)

OurStory’s students will practice immersion by actively participating in the lives of the

people they are interviewing. They will spend a significant portion of their trip following

their stories’ subjects and being a part of the things they do. By doing this, the students will

be actively “learning to recognize and limit reliance upon preconceptions about members’

lives and activities“ (Emerson 9). In order to ensure that they preserve as much

information about their interviewee as possible, OurStory’s students will be required to

record field notes.

These field notes will consist of descriptions of settings and activities, transcriptions

of conversations, personal observations, and more. Each student will write their notes in a

manner that makes sense to them and will benefit them when they sit down to write the

story at a later time. Although these field notes will vary in many ways, our artists will be

trained to ensure that their notes preserve the actuality of their situation. It is essential that

OurStory’s students record unbiased observations at the field note stage because the field

note document is the first instance of the story’s textualizaton (Emerson 16).

According to Emerson et. al, there are a number of ways that an writer may be

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tempted to impose their own ideas onto a story. They might take a “category, standard, or

meaning from one culture or locale and use it to describe events in another context,” or

might use a “term, category, or evaluation that is recognized, used, and honored by one

group in a particular social world to describe features or behaviors of another group in the

world.” Writers may unknowingly adopt a dismissive attitude toward members’ meanings

or frame their notes in terms of how things are “supposed” to be, such as recording a

statement about a busy office setting as unorganized or chaotic. An author may also ascribe

or invoke their own theoretical categories when taking notes and asking questions or they

might choose to describe settings and actions in terms of dichotomies (109-112).

OurStory’s students must vigilantly fight against these temptations so that they will be able

to relay a truly holistic understanding of their stories’ subjects. Awareness of these

temptations will enable the students to appropriately focus their field notes and prepare

themselves to write a better story at a later time.

Prior to their travel with OurStory, students will be taught how to write their field

notes, as well as how to conduct interviews and how to craft their final documents in a

manner that reveres the storyteller. They will receive this instruction in the form of a

printed curriculum that contains tips for recording field notes, suggestions about what

details to include in field notes, interview techniques, and more information that will help

them better understand how they can integrate the philosophy of an ethnographer into

their work. This curriculum will also include examples of ethnographies, short biographic

pieces, and genre-specific pieces that are ethnographically minded. OurStory’s students will

also learn about the philosophy of ethnography from an OurStory staff member during

their group meetings and pre-trip training sessions. The culmination of the students’

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ethnographic instruction will enable them to avoid the temptation of imposing their own

meaning on the stories, it will show them ways to implement ethnographic philosophy into

their own writing style, and it will ultimately increase their ability to connect the stories’

subjects with their audiences.

Embody the Subject

One essential product that OurStory’s ethnographic training will generate is the

sense of empowerment that the interview process will create for the interviewee. By

utilizing their training, OurStory’s students will learn to benefit the interviewee by

transforming the information accumulated in the interview into a reflection and

amplification of the interviewee rather than one of themselves. Playwright and actress

Anna Deavere Smith ensures that she accurately captures the subjects of her interviews in

her artwork by reviewing all of the information she gathers from them and then

“embodying” them.

Smith first began this practice of embodiment when she realized that her previous

approach to understanding characters was not working. Smith explains that the method

she previously used is often taught to actors but is “self-centered” and takes “the metaphor

out of acting.” This approach encourages actors and actresses to connect with their

character by figuring out what similarities they share with the character. Over time, Smith

found that forcing a connection between herself and her character caused more problems

than solutions. It made “the heart smaller, the spirit less gregarious, and the mind less apt

to be able to hold on to contradictions or oppositions” (xxix Fires). Smith suggests that an

alternative to this self-centered approach is one that focuses on the other.

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In order for actors and actresses to learn about their character, they must first

recognize that the character is “other” than themselves and embody it. Smith practices

embodying the other by imitating his or her language. While crafting her plays, specifically

Twilight and Fires in the Mirror, Smith interviewed hundreds of individuals and asked them

to tell her their stories. After collecting these narratives, she represented them in her

writing, making sure to imitate their voices as accurately as possible. Smith explained that

as she prepared to perform these plays, she practiced reciting the characters’ voices—their

dialects, their speech impairments, their paralinguistic cues—in order to learn more about

them.

I became increasingly convinced that the activity of reenactment could tell us

as much, if not more, about another individual that the process of learning

about the other by using the self as a frame of reference. The frame of

reference for the other would be the other. Learning about the other by being

the other requires the use of all aspects of memory, the memory of the body,

mind, and heart, as well as the words. (xxvii Fires)

By immersing herself in the differences between herself and the character, Smith suggests

that she is now able to better represent her characters.

As OurStory’s students transform their field notes into pieces of writing, they will

work to embody the heart of the original storyteller’s story by imitating the truths that

surround that individual throughout their final written product. This might take the form of

a word-for-word recitation of the interviewee’s dialogue or it could be as abstract as a

portrayal of an emotion that the interviewee describes. Because many of the stories

OurStory’s students will collect will have to be relayed by a translator, the students will

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have to rely on imitating their observations of setting, activity, and human interaction to

portray the heart of the story.

Sharing to Inspire Change

After OurStory students craft their writing, the documents will eventually be read.

Although the students will have ensured that their work does not impose the dominance of

a “single story,” the readers of these works will automatically utilize their own experiences

to help them understand what they are reading.

In a lecture about narrative theory, Marco Caracciolo explains that storytellers and

receivers have different experiences from one another, and therefore will approach and

understand a story differently. While listening to and comprehending the story, an

audience will draw from its own experiences to understand what is being described:

“Stories do not refer to or represent experience, but they are entangled in it. What this

means, concretely is that the experiential impact of narrative depends on its drawing on

the experiential background of its recipients” (Caracciolo 5). Essentially, the audience

members will place themselves in the story and will experience the narrative for

themselves.

If OurStory’s students craft their work in a manner that is easily accessible and

understandable to their audiences they can use this phenomenon to their advantage and

begin to transform the audiences’ previous experience with and interpretation of the

story’s subject matter. In addition to destroying the narrow narrative that threatens to

define the stories’ subjects, OurStory’s students will create a multi-faceted story of their

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subject that will resonate with audience members emotionally and lead them to feel a

sense of connection to the story’s subject.

The Non-Fiction Pieces

To allow the audience to understand and connect with their stories, OurStory’s

students must create a product that is easily accessible. Throughout their trip, the students

will first produce a series of brief non-fiction pieces about their interviewees and present

them to the mission organization. The mission organization will be able to immediately use

these pieces to inform and impact its current and potential sponsors. These pieces of

writing can be used in a format much like NWHCM’s Family Tree Project or in other ways.

Websites such as PopAnth and Humans of New York serve as examples of how non-fiction

pieces about unknown people and people groups can be presented in a manner that

encourages an audience’s connection to them.

The goal of the website PopAnth is to relay anthropological discoveries to the

masses.

We take anthropology’s collective knowledge and translate it for mainstream

audiences, much in the way that popular science books, tv shows and trivia

quizzes make even the hardest of sciences accessible. We strive to provide

you with the best of anthropology in a format that makes you go, ‘Wow! I

didn’t know that!’ Our cross-cultural stories aim to help you discover things

about yourself and the world you live in. (http://popanth.com/about/)

On its homepage, the website presents its viewers with vibrant images of various cultures

and labels the photograph with a story title. A brief summary of the story is provided, and a

“Read more” button is highlighted. After a quick click of the mouse, the reader is presented

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with an approximately thousand-word essay on an anthropological inquiry.

PopAnth’s stories come from scholars who are doing fieldwork all over the world,

but they are told in a vernacular that is easily understandable and enjoyable to read.

Because these stories are presented in a style that is familiar to mass audiences, large

numbers of people are able to take hold of otherwise unavailable information. The

accessibility provided by this vernacular allows for the audiences’ interest to be peaked

enough so that they begin to take in the information.

A second site that arouses audience interest in otherwise unheard stories is

“Humans of New York.” This site is a conglomeration of photographs and brief captions.

Each photograph and caption pair depicts a person who lives in New York City. The

photographs on “Humans of New York” vary in emotion and form. Some are taken of

individual’s profiles, some do not show the entirety of the person, and some are posed.

Quotes next to each photograph come from its subject or are written, in brief, by the site’s

author. The subject material of each comment varies, and the caption length varies from

one-sentence to several sentences. For example, one caption quotes the photograph’s

subject: “I’m studying to get a PhD in Neuroscience, but in my free time I like to perform in

burlesque shows.” Another relays the following anecdote.

After they finished kissing, she took off her blue cape, and laid it over a woman

sleeping on a nearby bench. It was such an unbelievably poetic moment, I actually

chased them down to fact-check my own eyes.

‘Excuse Me. Was that your blue blanket?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you just gave it to her?’

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‘….Yes, why?’

‘Oh nothing.’”

The site is visually appealing and easy to navigate, but its most impressive aspect is the

intrigue it creates. The brief glimpses of information the site gives the audience tell only

one story, but these single stories are not the dangerous type that Adichie condemns.

Because the stories are derived directly from the photographer’s conversations with his

subjects, the resulting stories speak the truth of the “other” and allow room for audience

members to experience that truth for themselves as they consider the vibrant, creative

images on their screen.

“PopAnth” and “Humans of New York” serve as two stellar examples of how people’s

stories can successfully be told, but the mission organizations that receive OurStory’s

products may choose to use them differently. Regardless of methods mission organizations

choose to share the stories, OurStory’s writing will serve as unique and useful advertising

tools for mission organizations and will enhance the experience of their current and

potential sponsors.

In order to recruit and retain sponsorship, mission organizations must approach

sponsorship as if it is a product to be sold. To successfully “sell” their sponsorship, the

organizations must ensure that the customer—their potential sponsor— feels positively

about purchasing from the organization. In Timothy R. Pearson’s book The Old Rules of

Marketing Are Dead, he explains this phenomenon. He says that creating a relationship

between the customer and a product forms an emotional loyalty to the product: “…one of

the keys to a brand’s core is the emotional connection between the product of service and

the people who purchase it” (Pearson 131). This connection will serve as a form of

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customer service: when the customer visits the mission’s site they will have an overall

positive experience because they will begin to feel as if the money they, or other people like

them, have spent makes a difference. They will feel a sense of joy as they realize that they

are part of a sponsorship community, and they will become, as Pearson calls them, brand

loyalists (Pearson 131).

The missions that OurStory partners with will be able to better their customer

service experience and ultimately increase mission organizations’ sponsorship revenue by

using the short non-fiction pieces that OurStory’s students give them.

The Genre Piece

As OurStory’s students craft their non-fiction pieces, they will also begin to

formulate plans for a creation of a genre-specific piece. Throughout their time on the

mission field, the students will begin taking notes for a creative work they plan to write and

will begin drafting it. These pieces might come in the form of plays, flash fiction, poetry,

novels, blogs, or even haikus, but all of the pieces will be devoted to uplifting and

preserving the voice of the “other.” These works of art will vary greatly, but if OurStory’s

students remain dedicated to their quest of finding truth and revering humanity, each of

their works will tell untold stories and connect audiences to people they may never have

the opportunity to meet.

The Trip

The First Trip

Within the next year, OurStory will launch its first trip. The first group to travel with

OurStory will be made up of no less that eight university students who are strong writers

Aven 22

and dedicated to the mission of OurStory. The student group will be drawn primarily from

Lee University and will be will be made up of students from the communication,

anthropology, and English programs. The diversity of this first group will allow for a

stronger gathering of data about the OurStory trip and will produce biography pieces that

exemplify strong advertising and ethnographic focuses as well as creative intrigue. The

data collected from this first trip will later be used by OurStory to ensure that English

majors receive excellent training on how to write ethnographically-minded pieces that will

accurately advertise the work of the mission organization.

Prior to the taking the trip, the student group will meet at least three times before

traveling together. At these meetings they will discuss travel details and information,

discuss ethnographic philosophy and techniques, and learn about the NWHCM and the

history of the northwest region of Haiti.

The group will travel to St. Louis du Nord, Haiti, and work with John Black and other

missionaries at NWCHM. This mission organization will be an ideal destination for

OurStory’s first trip because its media director has already stated that the services

OurStory offers will be useful to its Family Tree Project.

Travel to St. Louis du Nord, Haiti, will take two days. After arriving at the mission

base, the team will split into small groups and spend seven days getting to know the

mission and gathering its stories. The groups will be assigned various aspects of the

mission to focus on: some will be stationed with a specific ministry, such as the Birthing

Center or the Nutrition Program, and others will be partnered with a specific group of

individuals, such as a group of friends at the orphanage or the individuals at the elderly

home. All of the groups will be charged with gathering and telling stories of the people they

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interview. These writers will need to coordinate with one another to ensure that stories are

written about as many people as possible.

Throughout the trip, the groups will spend their time serving the mission in

whatever ways are immediately needed. Their primary focus, however, will be to gather

field notes, participate with the people, and conduct interviews with the help of translators.

In the evenings, the groups will gather and write about their experiences. This schedule

will occur for the first six days of the trip. On the last day of the trip, the students will meet

with NWHCM’s missionaries and talk with them about the stories they are crafting.

During their week in Haiti, the team will take no less than two brief trips away from

the mission base—possibly to the nearby voudou temple or to a morning market—in order

to learn more about the region’s culture.

Upon their return to the United States, students will be given one week to revise

their short biography pieces and two weeks to draft their genre pieces. The students will

exchange these documents with one another for review on an online workshop forum.

After the stories are completed, they will then be emailed to John Black at NWHCM.

The Second Trip

After this initial trip, I will assess the stories that have been created and

communicate with NWHCM about the benefits of using the students’ writing.

This trip will be organized the same way as the first trip and follow the same daily

schedule. However, minor adjustments will be made according to the outcome of the initial

trip. In order to more effectively gauge the effects of the adjustments made to OurStory’s

program, the second OurStory trip will also travel through NWHCM and will also employ

students of various majors.

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Upon completing the second trip, OurStory students will revise and submit their

work to NWHCM. I will then choose the most exemplary from among these and the first

trip’s stories to promote OurStory’s work. I will also continue to gather data and feedback

from John Black, NWHCM’s other missionaries, the stories’ subjects, and OurStory’s

students as I prepare to present this information to prospective OurStory students,

potential university and mission organization partners, and possible financial supporters.

The Next Six Years of Trips

In the next six years, OurStory will begin building relationships with at least four

mission organizations that are excited about and willing to use OurStory’s writing to

promote their mission.

OurStory will develop a board of directors, garner financial support from churches,

begin partnering with universities, and start to develop a program that is specifically

dedicated to enhancing the educational and writing experience of undergraduate English

students.

Applications for OurStory will begin incorporating questions concerning location

preference and more detailed questions regarding skill set and personal passions. This will

allow OurStory to form trip groups that are made up of a wide array of student personality

and genre interest. When students’ applications are reviewed, they will be assigned a

particular location based on their requests and the discernment of OurStory’s staff.

After students are assigned their trip location, they will join an online forum with

the other students from their trip groups. They will be required to share at least two short

non-fiction pieces about an acquaintance, and must respond to and workshop with the

Aven 25

other students’ submissions. OurStory will provide the students with travel updates,

writing samples, and regional and cultural information from this site.

The students will attend two meetings with a trip coordinator and other OurStory

students from their university before they go on their trip.

During these six years of trips, OurStory will begin transitioning into an even larger

format, developing curriculum for OurStory students, partnering with more mission

organizations and universities, hosting pre- and post-trip meetings for all OurStory

students in one location, and more.

The Final Trip Paradigm

In the final trip paradigm, students will apply to OurStory and request a specific

location for their trip. They will also be asked to describe their unique skill sets and

passions. OurStory’s staff members will determine the best partnership for the students

and give them their trip assignment no less than four months before the trip takes place.

There will be two sets of trips in a given year. One will take place in June and the

other in July.

Students will meet with an OurStory staff member, as well as other students who

attend their university for two meetings between the time they are accepted into the

program and the time the trip begins. The first meeting will serve as an orientation about

the mission. At this meeting, students will be given writing samples from previous

OurStory students. At this meeting, the students will be assigned to write a creative piece

about an individual they do not know. Artists will submit their work to an online forum and

will workshop their pieces at the second meeting. This second meeting will serve as a

writers’ training session.

Aven 26

Before each set of trips there will be a more-detailed and intensive training session

that will last for two days. At this session the artists will learn more about OurStory and

practice interviewing, writing field notes, and crafting stories. They will learn about the

culture and history of the region they will be traveling to. This session will also serve as a

way for students to get to know their specific trip group.

The groups will then embark on their trips, gather notes, and write stories. This trip

will look similar to the first trip OurStory takes, however, time will greatly increase the

trip’s level of organization. Furthermore, OurStory will begin incorporating other student

disciplines into the process, specifically Communication arts students and aspiring

photographers and videographers.

After seven full days on location, all OurStory groups will return to the initial

meeting location for a writing retreat. The writers will spend five days revising and work-

shopping their pieces during the day and participating in fun, educational activities in the

evenings. On the fifth day of the trip, a symposium will be held. The artists will read their

work to each other, OurStory’s staff members, and any friends and family they wish to

invite.

Once this trip paradigm has stabilized, OurStory will consider providing student-led

English camps and writing circles for the people the mission serves. These events will

occur simultaneous to the collection and production of the people’s stories.

Eventually, OurStory will create a website that catalogues all of the non-fiction

pieces and genre-specific creative pieces that its students create. OurStory will also work

towards publishing a printed anthology of these stories.

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November 2013.

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Carnevale, Anthony P. and Ban Cheah. Hard Times: College Majors, Unemployment and

Earnings. Georgetown Public Policy Institute, 2013. Web. 10 November 2013.

Edmundson, Mark. “The Ideal English Major.” The Chronicle of Higher Education 59.44.

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Emerson, Robert M., et. al. Writing Ethnographic Fieldnotes. Chicago, 1995: University of

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2011.

Lynch, Gawain. PopAnth. Web. 11 November 2013.

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Brand & Reignite Your Business. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2011. Print.

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Smith, Anna Deavere. Fires in the Mirror. New York (1993): Anchor Books. Print

Stanton, Brandon Humans of New York. Web. 11 November 2013.

Strauss, Steve. “Why I Hire English Majors.” Huff Post Small Business. 23 June 2013. Web. 6

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Weissmann, Jordan. “The Best Argument for Studying English? The Employment Numbers.”

The Atlantic. 25 July 2013. Web. 10 November 2013.

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