Editor's Note, July-August 2004
Elizabeth Haller
Instructor, Central Michigan University
E-mail: editoraee@hotmail.com
The "slowing down" for summer session at various schools is reflected in the frequency of submissions to Academic Exchange Extra. These summer months are a relatively slow time for contributions to AEE. Therefore, we decided to combine the July and August issues. We hope that you understand and appreciate that this will give us extra time to gear up for the September issue where, among other intriguing articles and works of fiction, we will be continuing Dan Lukiv's symposium regarding phenomenological studies as well as Lynne Fukuda's "Study in the Sun on a Desert Island."
As always, enjoy this issue's submissions, and as you do, consider offering us a piece of your work for publication. We invite your continued perusal and encourage you to submit articles, poetry, and fiction for consideration in future issues of AEE. Please review our Call for Papers on this site for more details on submission requirements. If you are unsure whether your contribution would be suitable under the terms of our Call for Papers, please send along an inquiry, and I will be happy to respond forthwith. As always, do not forget to check out Grist for the Mill for possible submission ideas.
A gentle reminder that if you are interested in joining our editorial staff, positions are available. Please e-mail me for more details.
Lynne Fukuda returns with another entry for her monthly column, "The View From Here." Fukuda's article is part one of a two part study titled, "Study in the Sun on a Desert Island: My Adventures on the Northwestern Hawaii Islands, French Frigate Shoals." Fukuda's synopsis of part one is as rich as her current installment:
Before going to the French Frigate Shoals, Tern Island, I had never lived entirely alone, never had done biological fieldwork. The three summers previous to going to Tern Island was spent doing archaeology in the blistering heat of the Hawaiian summers. I was twenty-two years old when I embarked on Tern Island, not too young but still rather immature. When I boarded the small Cessna and packed in my bundle of worldly belongings, I took a deep breath and hoped for the best. My plane would not crash; I would not get appendicitis while on the atoll, or have a major injury. I would also get along with the other volunteers and scientists.
But like all groups of individuals coming from different backgrounds and upbringing, living in close quarters or in isolation with a small group creates some tension. Like siblings in a family, we fought over scarce resources, had a few tense moments and such, but somehow made up, knowing that we would have to be together on a small atoll for the next three months or so.
Learning about the biological richness of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands was not my only surprise. The people, who loved and lived on the atoll temporarily, but fully in a twenty-four hour way, were also unique. They formed a culture all their own. Deprived of normal things in our former twentieth-century life, we became somewhat like Robinson Crusoe. We became innovative, creative, and compromised. We did things that we no longer did in adulthood; we enjoyed and witnessed things that amazed us, as we had not for decades. Some were vegans, others were neohippies of sorts, and others were staunch conservationists. And, of course, we also had the good old American individual who lived eating and loving the normal, wholesome things we grew up with.
Thus, learning to live with a small group of humans, as well as living close to nature, was my lesson in being at Tern Island. Once alone for days on the desert island such as Whale-Skate and East Island, I was alone entirely with nature.
Our first featured article is the fourth of seven in a symposium that
Dan Lukiv has
generously decided to share with AEE. According to Mr. Lukiv, "This
symposium of seven parts discusses: two phenomenological studies that
explored lived school experiences that had encouraged two people to become
creative writers (part one and part two); the abstract versus concrete
sides of phenomenology (part two); bracketing out bias and bracketing
in possibilities (defined in part three); the implicit nature of interview
data and poetry (part four); the need for educators and researchers to
use tact (part five); and the precepts of something I call Theory from
Phenomenology (defined in part seven). I have tried to avoid abstract
language as much as possible to make the work accessible to readers unfamiliar
with phenomenological inquiry.
Part
One: For Those Who Teach Creative Writing--Study I of VI (see AEE
April 2004 Issue)
Part
Two: Phenomenology: The Abstract and the Concrete (see AEE May
2004 Issue
Part Three:
Bracketing and Phenomenology (see AEE June 2004 issue)
Part
Four: How is Qualitative Interview Data Like a Poem?
Part Five: Tact, for the Researcher
and the Educator
Part Six: For Those Who Teach Creative
Writing--Study II of VI
Part Seven: Theory from Phenomenology"
AEE content editor Sharon Studenka provides our second feature of this issue with her piece titled "Facilitating Learning in the Composition Classroom through Individualized Goals." As Studenka notes, "Many times the course goals set within the composition classroom do not meet the individual writing goals or needs of students. I changed the standard Freshman Composition course goals to include the individual goals of my students. In doing so, students became more engaged in not only the writing process, but the learning process as well."
Dr. Marvin Gettleman provides our third feature. Dr. Gettleman's "Pedagogy for Men" is about a "middle-aged male poet who accompanies his scholar-wife to a conference where she delivers a lecture on her specialty--pedagogy. Afterward, a man, not suspecting the marriage connection, confides to the poet that he wouldn't want to be married to such a smart woman; 'She's the kind who will use her mind to put a man down all the time.' Attacking this man's misogyny, the poet finds himself delivering a lecture on pedagogy for men."
Jessica Perciante closes out this issue with a short piece titled, "Many Mountains Moving: The Structure of a Small Literary Magazine." Perciante comments that it "explores the culture of a non-profit magazine. Although my time as an intern at the magazine was enjoyable, I realized the publication's operations were unorganized and chaotic because of a lack of funds. Somehow, the magazine gets published, although how it all comes together remains a mystery."
Enjoy and look for our return in September!
Academic Exchange Extra invites reader responses to any writings in this issue--especially articles advancing the scholarly debate of issues raised.
- Web Editor
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