Last class assigment

Teaching adults; Last assignment .I have been working as an educational consultant for the Minnesota Literacy Consortium; along with one of my colleagues we are assigned to conduct a workshop on ‘Writing as Healing’ as a form of therapy for corrections inmates’ at the State Department of Corrections facility at Shakopee: we will be coming in once a week for six weeks; we hand out a syllabus.. (unspoken: we are gathering information for a research project that evaluates writing as therapy in corrections education programs). This first session we thank you all for showing up today I realize our course is a part of mandatory sentencing, and you get credit for being here; but you had other choices like MATH..(ha ha ha the girls get a charge out of that one) Today is just to get to know each other; we introduce ourselves; there are about 17 student inmates mostly young black females, several white young and middle aged, and a handful of Mexican and Latino females

Our basic assumption is that few of the nation’s six million offenders under correctional supervision are adequately prepared to live productive and law abiding lives upon re entering the community. It has been proven offenders find therapy in writing about the problems and various conditions and that have placed them behind bars. What happened to you? Such topics as drug addiction, prostitution, theft, almost all the women have suffered some form of abuse at the hands of spouses; child neglect, or in some cases how the women feel they got a raw deal from the court and law enforcement are common subjects in the writing

With my colleague an adult education teacher at Hubbs Center for Adult Learning, we introduce ourselves as licensed teachers; and that we are here to help them discover a strategy that will help them deal with their incarceration by writing about the experiences, their feelings about prison life, anything, everything they want to write in their journal.

We hope the girls have computer skills and can create a file; we would like to provide some kind of media, a portfolio, of semi permanent folder, three ring binder , or a box to arrange the writing in; some of these girls cut open a vane, vein, vain; some of the second language offenders can barely speak or write English.

Each week we will discuss and review the last week’s work; some students may decide to read their work for the rest of the writers. I think we’ll all enjoy this exercise. Now writers would you please introduce yourself and what you intend to write about if you can; why you decided to take this class when you had other choices; also are there any among you who have already written or published your writing (?)…Oh that’s wonderful, and could you tell us your name and story….and so on

Teaching adults: I begin to discuss a strategy with him to mediate my client’s problems in dealing with attorneys. He is a study in attention deficit; with a unique twist, building his own interpretation of traditional foundations of education, , instead of ignoring, spacing out, avoiding the subject: he converts the discussion; assertively inserting his selected subject or topic for debate which is usually a proposition or legal generalization/application that leads into discussion dealing with [his] rights lost under the sixth amendment, validation of his guaranteed contract, or any subject on the Internet, how women think, (he can talk your arm off-he thinks)he will usually stick to this point whatever it is essentially filibustering until the original thought related to the defense is lost or forgotten; every conversation must lead to this conclusion if he leads it.

Initially the problem invited itself into any extended personal or phone conversation recently this issue has become a problem in written communications with attorneys and judges. Of course if I discussed this problem with the client any such analysis made him uncomfortable; he doesn’t expect that depth of analysis; he has motives for this particular finesse of reason, to protect his lost dignity interests that I suspect are most sacred of all to him. After a long series of arguments, I explained we had to have a unified strategy in our initial meeting with his new attorney (he has had four in the six years I’ve recorded the case study); a assessment of his skills in both reading an writing is estimated at 5th grade level at start up. Perhaps 8th grade today. .

The first assignment at this stage of litigation is organizational approaching Federal Court appeal on a motion for adjustment of restitution, where all the previous issues we have involved in previous court submissions become relevant as they are the foundation of voiding the charges against him: his only way out of the box. He has enough evidence to prove his case I believe; a few attorneys have agreed for a while, until they had his money; then they resigned. I believe he has to convince this attorney with the totality of it like Nabokov’s ‘Bend Sinister’story of an ‘evil’ provenance at the bottom of this case, previously undefined that has never been accepted as a legitimate defense with any authority; the ineffective counsel defense his case depends on has been at the heart of every appeal argument I have written since 2006; it is still the foundation and only one relevant to the rarely used Rule 35 coram nobis defense strategy.

The client assignment is to read the introductory chapters of Alexander Dumas classic ‘The Count of Monte Christo’ In a brain blizzard I tell him what we’re going to have some fun during these gloomy pretrial days; the reality is he could go back to prison on contempt of court for failure to pay on the $375G restitution order he agreed to; to break the stranglehold we will try watching movie of one of our heroes. who played Jesus Jim Caviezel.as Edmond Dantes. He has heard of him. The plot which we often discussed he was familiar with the basics and had seen the movie on TV with starring Richard Chamberlain; and also the latest version starring James Caviezel the actor who played Jesus Christ in the recent Mel Gibson blockbuster; so once I presented a little background and basis for comparison the client was all for discovering any relationship to his case in the film and novel He might be able to relate to between what he considered difficult literature to read and a film he was familiar with; also any comparison he or I might derive with Jesus who he compared himself along with Job to in his sufferings, was welcome; the assignment was not a tough one and amounted to six chapters and 37 pages in which he was being asked to read: two pages a day would cover the reading assignment; though he reads very seldom he agrees to it. I am trying to convince him his contract validation ‘argument’ may confuse Attorney Arthur; we must tell him the story, the plot, the setting, the motive, the characters just like in the Count story; it take as while for the lesson to develop but it seems like it is sinking in as he gathers money for his defense fund.


Learning objectives:


Recognition: match words, phrases or paragraphs in the novel for which the student already knows the meaning: list them
Understanding the message: what is the intended message the author is sending the reader; what can be inferred from the text
What is can be inferred from the subtext, back story
React: next I ask the student to compare and integrate the information in the text with their own knowledge and prior experience
I ask the student to apply his new knowledge, insight, skills gained from reading in other contexts or to meet personal needs writing on his computer being sure to use the dictionary and spell checker sending me drafts by e-mail
Finally as you are reading what obvious comparisons are you drawing that exist between the film, the novel and the characters we are familiar with in the swindle we are dealing with in the Federal Restitution Appeal.


I do not expect the client as an unaccomplished and uninterested reader who has never understood the value of learning his native language, to pick up details of the 1805 Marseilles harbor landscape, the intricate details of the developing plot are vague, the dialogue is sparse directly related to nautical science, the clandestine plot with Napoleon is woven in: and the instructor assumes the client won’t pick them up in the Dumas text: but has gained the basic idea from seeing the movie. The guy got set up and robbed by his enemies: I am hoping I don’t have to argue with: but there was not contract involved so it’s not relevant to my case; and, he will get the point.

Looking forward to setting up the next phase of the lesson; anticipating road blocks to understanding and reacting. Here I shift roles from being a teacher to a counselor (legal) with a bit of the psychologist thrown in knowing how his manic nature leads him to generalization and irrelevancy: in our critique we do not expect him to respond or understand or be able to relate to the analogue; again his refractory nature would arrive on the scene creating to relevancy that doesn’t exist to make his point and so on.

Is there anything in the background of our case we have to clarify for the new attorney; as story teller I ask if there are any characters in the Dumas story that remind him of his story;
Now is the time to deal with changing initial assumptions: e.g. I state we can’t go into the attorneys office with the idea of laying down a list of condemnations, violations, and propositions against the US government: which has been his previous method: I emphasize those inputs have to be kept in perspective the plot of the novel adds to our lesson: (I would be curious to find out why he believes his propositional approach is necessary; his psychological motive and is it a form of denial; but that is material for my chef d’oeuvre). The story of the takeover of the business by two conspirators is what we’re interested in producing
I notify him my role as mediator is to prevent any of these issues I view as irrelevant into the conversation
A strategy we agree on beforehand will eliminate any of the guesswork about what we say
Under no circumstances do you advise the attorney what strategy to use
I am there to prevent that objecting, reminding right in front of the attorney/judge that Arthur is according to his website.
I don’t intend to be like the warden at Lino Lakes was like. Not harsh but firm. The due date of the reading assignment basic is two weeks from today; (we will watch the film the following weekend)


Short term goals. If the strategy makes it past step 1 above we have accomplished a deal; once he learns the scaffolding technique the rest is easy because he knows exactly what these crooks did: he just doesn’t like to admit the much more clever than he crooks used the courts to accomplish an illegal takeover; and in the process, humiliated, swindled, stole from him and put him in prison; it is an awful position to be in before his sons; who no longer support his defense fund; and his ex-wife a dental assistant (once his trophy bride) who divorced him and married the new dentist in town. They had twins. Ugh. I feel his grief but he has no other choice; he has to drop this hogwash story of the validity of the contract which I regard as irrelevant. It is a more attractive way of presenting his case to an attorney: a half dozen others have bailed out on him and his pseudo argument that is a memoranda list of propositions, and violations he has compiled against the United States’ court systems. My long range goal is to teach him the difference between making a slough of propositions in a list; and a structured argument: syllogism, premises, and conclusion.


Next Assignment: Keeping a writing folder


Teaching Adults: Keeping a writing folder. this exercise gets the client involved in sorting and filing physical documents so he could begin learning a defense strategy by organizing information, data, analysis he has; this will be a great help in presenting his case to his new attorney. They have some nice looking folders at Office Depot that look like a bound ledger; I recommend something of a permanent basis to begin his journal his legacy and the foundation he hopes to build off this case;

Make editing notes on the skills and new knowledge on the case you have (both) learned working on the case since it first went to State Appeal Court in 2006; it’s been a long time coming; let’s keep track of the progress in a journal; you have been learning how to type, use the spell checker and so on; your work has shown signs of improvement in the content and conventions areas; now the removal of all generalizations that detract from the message and the meaning is our next task, organizing this writing folder will help.
Always review your errors of the previous week
Use proof readers marks and codes if you are not sure of a word, phrase, meaning
It will be job one to review your work and keep you updated on the statistics; your progress as a student of English language arts and writing.
Decide what or what not to keep as units, chapters, sections
The more you review and edit the more polished your work promises to become
Add new pieces delete the old as you see fit
If you are being successful you notice your work reflecting more levels of meaning, less generalizations:
Be aware the instructor will be looking for generic language and organizational lapses

Other additions to the folder might be drafts, revisions and edits all in one folder, unfinished pieces for later, ideas for new directions and discovery in the case

In apologia I’ve been throwing in the kitchen sink trying to get my client to learn how to write adequately; it’s a grind, up and down; good days and bad; we keep track of that in our journal notes. Being the scientist it might be more helpful to create some kind of model of agricultural engineering he can apply to because he does not seem like the type of individual who is able to extract any but the most superficial meaning from stories, parables, (poems) anecdotes; if he has a strength it is in exposition of contractual details concerning lost indemnification properties due him.