Source 1: Writing Across and Against the Curriculum by Art Young

Tate Hall 004, 9:26 a.m., I sit down at my desk to dive into my first source to explore! Earlier in the week I received an email back regarding my inquiry for guidance. Now the waiting is over!

Upon recommendation, the first essay I will turn to will be Art Young's "Writing Across and Against the Curriculum." I accessed the essay through a pdf. file and read it on my computer.

In this essay, Young discusses the ability poetry offers students to express meaningful thoughts and emotions not readily accessible to them in "disciplinary language and context" (472). In this way, poetry becomes a means of "writing against" the dominant curriculum and academic discourse (472). To this end, Young devised a program entitled Poetry Across the Curriculum (PAC, corresponding to the idea of Writing Across the Curriculum) (475). He explains this program writing, “The purpose of poetry across the curriculum, as we conceive it, is not to teach students to be better poets but to provide opportunities for them to use written language to engage course content in meaningful ways” (475). Such use of counter-disciplinary language opens up the potential for more personal connections to and renewed understandings of the subject (475). Speaking specifically of students interacting with literature through poetry, Young provides eight goals he has for having his students write poetry:
"(1) to experience literature as producers as well as consumers; (2) to read poetry carefully and imaginatively; (3) to gain new understandings and perspectives about how poetry works; (4) to develop a personal connection (feelings and values) to the literature they are reading; (5) to pay close attention to the possibilities of language; (6) to express voice and to make discoveries about their own voices; (7) to behave as writers serious about the writing they do; and (8) to surprise themselves, each other, and me." (476-477)

To answer the question of why poetry, Young draws upon the theoretical framework of Britton et. al and their The Development of Language Abilities (11-18), which asserts that poetic writing involves a different kind of learning from transactional or functional writing, a type of writing that is often more likely to lead to creative problem solving and innovation (475-476).  He additionally discusses the practical power of poetry's succinctness and verbal intensity when compard to other forms of creative writing.

After reading this essay, I immediately gave a metaphoric whoop-bop-a-doo-whop! Yes I can, and should, use poetry liberally in my composition classes! Yet upon further reflection I became rather more reservedly pensive. How exactly can I work poetry into my classes in an effective manner? What about the resistance making students write poetry has often engendered in my experience? What about specific assignments? How specific to assignment requirements have to be? Though Young gave some examples--e.g. writing a poem in response to a specific piece of literature--I wonder about specific assignment sheets. 

Still, even with all these questions in place, on a personal level this essay resonated with me. Young's basic argument that we should take advantage of poetic writing in all disciplines in order to promote personal reflection, innovation, creative re-imaginings, and revitalized connections to subject materials rings true to me not just intellectually but also emotionally as I have seen in my own life poetic practice functioning in these ways. 

Young, Art. "Writing Across And Against The Curriculum." College Composition And Communication 54.3 (2003): 472-85. ERIC. Web. 4 Feb. 2015.