Questioning the Illusive Appalachian Identity

by Carmen Bowes

February 9, 2015

             I am a big fan of the “I am from the mountains so I know Appalachia” remark.  It is proving a bit difficult for me to shake that mentality as truth and what I know of this place as the only Appalachia. I know it is far more diverse than I can imagine and I also know that all different kinds of people live within Appalachia. If that is so, how do we as educators or future educators develop an identity for this region that is useful to all of its inhabitants?

            This week we read two texts. The first was “Appalachian Identity: A Roundtable Discussion” with an introduction by Barbara Ellen Smith and including: the thoughtful Stephen Fisher, insightful Phillip Obermiller, list-maker David Whisnant, the feisty Dr. Emily Satterwhite. The second text was an investigation into “the hillbilly” in Sandra L. Ballard’s “Where Did Hillbillies Come From? Tracing Sources of the Comic Hillbilly Fool in Literature.” Both texts fueled class discussion and thought on what makes Appalachia and how on earth can we try to find a regional identity when it seems to be so many things to so many people?

            We discussed ‘Appalachian Identity’ and the Roundtable Discussion first. It became clear pretty quickly that finding one Appalachian Identity was going to be impossible. Right out of the gate, Smith deals out a slew of questions in her introduction and gives a taste of each of the writers to follow. She finishes with the big question, “Defense of the embattled region slides all too easily and unconsciously into xenophobic condemnation of that which is foreign. In such a complex and perilous political context, what forms of Appalachian identity truly point toward justice?”(Appalachian Journal, 57). Too often, getting caught up in being Appalachian leads to backwards thinking and bashing of people from elsewhere or elsewhere itself. How can we be Appalachian and not let the consensus slip into this counterproductive elitist thinking?

            Fisher was a natural slot to follow the introduction. He spoke a lot about telling Appalachian stories and about what being Appalachian meant to him. He said, “Claiming Appalachia has given me a place and a people and a sense of who I am and who I want to become and has brought focus and commitment to my work and politics” (Appalachian Journal, 59). I think that claiming Appalachia has done that for a lot of people, I know it did that for me. What is it that Fisher, myself, educators, students, and so many others are identifying with?

            I think Obermiller tries to answer that question when he quotes 21^st Century Sociology: A Reference Book. He says, “Appalachian culture provides a forum for negotiating meaning, not a set of fixed and final values operating over and above mountain people…” (Appalachian Journal, 62). I love that because it seems to be the intangible thing we are working towards naming. Tim said of Obermiller that he was somewhat vague but this captures that “You can’t make one distinctive Appalachian culture.” Because Obermiller does not give an exact definition of what Appalachian Identity entails, he is “more concerned with the agency of identity, that is, how it can be used to create a better life by people in the place, or from the place, we call Appalachia” (Appalachian Journal, 63). This is the real task at hand, establishing the agency that identity imparts.  

            Whisnant’s “Eschatological Laundry List-on Appalachian Regional Identity” was full of thought-provoking one-liners and brought the question of insider/outsider politics to light. Is there value to having separate insider and outsider categories when discussing Appalachian identity and if so/not what value or lack thereof? Here are a few of Whisnant’s list items:

7. Being ‘local’ is sometimes, but not always, an aid to clarity or understanding.

8. ‘Insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ are false and useless categories.

9. Too many of the arguments in favor of Appalachian regional identity have been built too uncritically around several as yet untested and unverified (mostly cultural) notions/concepts: ‘Appalachian people,’ ‘mountain people,’ ‘love for the land,’ ‘family,’ ‘sense of place,’ ‘tradition,’ ‘heritage.’

(Appalachian Journal, 67-68)

We chewed on number 8 for a while and said that maybe the insider/outsider category could be false but not useless or that perhaps the use for these categories is simply unproductive. Brandi said, “Insider/outsider categories oversimplify the complexities.”  In other words, while there is certainly a group of people that would consider themselves insiders, and the rest outsiders, it is not a productive or useful way to view Appalachian Identity itself or the study of that identity.

Dr. Emily Satterwhite expressed strong views on insider/outsider politics. Caleb gave a great overview of Satterwhite’s piece, he said, “Appalachian identity is multiple. You shouldn’t ignore those negative things that might not be so pretty about Appalachia. Insider/outsider distinctions are not useful and the difference between resistance identities versus project identities is important.” To expand a bit, Satterwhite explains,

“‘Resistance identities’ challenge negative value judgments about ridiculed groups…but also reinforce generalizations without being reflective about potentially negative characteristics of the group’s members…’project identities’ identify common goals that a group of actors may collectively pursue in the interest of transforming the overall societal structure” (Appalachian Journal, 72).

Aaron explained that “the false dichotomy created by the insider/outsider concept made us miss important lessons.” I agree with Aaron. Getting rid of the insider/outsider dichotomy could create space to discuss an Appalachian Identity that could provide the agency we are looking for.

Moving past the insider/outsider politics, Sam said of Satterwhite that “she seems devoted to the idea of disrupting the common narrative and replacing it with something more inclusive and socially fair.” Satterwhite says, “The first part is to teach students to think critically about all generalizations regarding group difference-including and even especially favorable generalizations about group difference.” In other words, let us not dumb down the problem at hand, it will lead to false solutions. Let us instead, be critical about the world around us and both things that are being presented positively and negatively. Positive generalizations can cause negative effects even if no bad intent were meant. Sam added “What is lost if we throw out those positive generalizations?” Do we as educators or future educators see another way to challenge the issues regarding group difference without losing anything of value?

Shifting to Ballard we began discussing the hillbilly as fool and specifically the television show from the 1970s The Beverly Hillbillies. Ballard says that the problem with this representation of country folk, “is that, despite their virtues, the mountain people are depicted as mere children” (Ballard, 139). She continues, “Recognizing the essential “goodness” of the Clampetts makes me more comfortable with The Beverly Hillbillies than some people from the region are” (Ballard, 139). Jonathan from class disagrees with this, saying, “just because there is a lesson behind the caricature does not make it alright.” Caroline said, “When we see this representation that is all we get, there is no counterargument. When you see a representation of Appalachia on television, that may be the only one this month.”  These two are right, the perpetuation of these negative images won’t do well for anyone in the region. 

Jennifer moved on to discussing action and said, “We have a responsibility to highlight the positives, we work to develop an identity that we project to the nation in a different capacity.” Audra S. said, “It’s not just who tells it, it is how it is experienced. What level of control do we have about media and the broader area and what they choose to play?” The concept of representation and choice here becomes very important; it is not only what is being perpetuated but also who is perpetuating it. There are many cool, nice, smart things happening in Appalachia that do not get heard about on a national level. How do we make these things more commonly representative of Appalachia? Is that important? As teachers, how can we help students to see these issues from a young age and work towards changing the status quo?

As we were wrapping up discussion it took a turn for the proud in our little class, an earnest Caroline said,

“I’m gonna be proud of it in spite of you. It feels good because there are things about this place that I love almost in a perverse way. I love the things that are dirty…the cars in people’s yards…there is a guy that turns these cars in to art. That is what you do, you recognize what needs to be changed, love it in spite of it, and find some way to make it better.”

I have to say, I agree with this girl whole-heartedly, I got cold chills as I was recording her thought process. I think that is just what this is about; seeing what needs changed, loving it anyways, and finding modern, innovative ways to make something out of it. Appalachia needs this kind of thinking. This is what all people in Appalachia should be able to identify with, no matter how ugly, no matter how worn down and beat, something can be done with it.

Book Review 1: The Unquiet Earth by Denise Giardina

By Jennifer Parrill
Published by Ballantine Books, 1992

ISBN-10   0-8041-1144-8

Historical Fiction

Synopsis

            The Unquiet Earth is the story of a mining town on the West Virginia/Kentucky border and the intertwining lives of its people.  Alternating narrators slowly unravel the decades long story of family, loss, exploitation, and change.

The story begins with cousins Dillon and Rachel as children in the 1930’s.   The children of two very different sisters, the children share an intense connection that blossoms with complication as they grow.  Dillon’s father, a union organizer, is shot shortly after his birth and the loss feeds his lifelong need to possess Rachel.  The intensity and sexual nature of Dillon’s feelings convinces Rachel to pursue nursing and make a separate life for herself.  Over the years, the two are divided by war, marriage, incarceration, and spite, though never far from the other’s thoughts.  They secretly conceive a daughter, Jackie. Trouble with the union and mining company eventually causes an irreparable rift between Rachel, who makes compromises to accommodate reality and Dillon, who sees the world in adversarial black and white. 

The story continues as Jackie grows up in the same mining town.  She remains ignorant of her parentage until adulthood, though Dillon is a constant fixture in her life.  Provided with a comfortable lifestyle far beyond that of her neighbors and friends, she nonetheless despises her corrupt stepfather Arthur Lee.  Jackie comes of age when she falls in love with a novice priest named Tom who has come to Appalachia to do service work through VISTA.  By the 1960’s, poverty in the mountains has hit the national stage and this dynamic between the insular mining communities and the rest of the country figures prominently in the plot. It is through the character of Tom and his influence on Jackie that we see the impact of the political activism of the time. Ironically, the help they are given is ineffective, and the help they ask for is denied.  Through Arthur Lee we understand the corrupt business practices and underhanded government dealings that affected the lives of miners and their families.

By the end of the book we have witnessed the passing of Rachel and Dillon’s lives, and endured the heartbreaking societal, economic, environmental, and personal tragedies that are deftly woven in the novel.

Some Personal Thoughts on Lesson Planning

            After reading this novel, I felt as though I had made a profound discovery.  As a West Virginia native, the language and story were strongly resonant and I found the characters on my mind for days afterward.  But to address the book successfully with students, I would first like to get feedback from a few adolescent readers – which aspects of the story were most accessible/appealing to today’s teenagers? Was there a particular character they identified with?  Were there parts of the setting or story that seemed utterly foreign and difficult to access?  I’m bringing my own baggage to the text, but I would like to get a sense of what their baggage is – experiences and associations different from my own that may shape how I approach the text in planning for best results.

            The novel is complex and versatile.  In retrospect, it’s hard to believe that it all fit between the covers!  This is good news, because it makes it easy to pair with writing exercises and companion texts.  For instance, each chapter is from the perspective of a different character at a different point in time over the course of sixty some years.  They function as mini-memoirs and could be incorporated into a memoir-writing unit.  Individual passages could be compared with Amy Clark’s non-fiction piece “Appalachian Hope and Heartbreak” in aid of identifying the guises memoir takes.

            Because a large part of the narrative involves the nature and practices of the coal industry, this novel is well suited to cross-curricular planning and has potential to incorporate history, civics, and science.  The debate rages over environmental safety and the actual economic benefit to local economies.  In the ELA classroom, a head to head examination of the subsequent literature from each camp could engender debate over the definition of propaganda and the use of persuasive devices.

            Although the idea of Place Based Education is new to me, I think the blanket of “insider” and “outsider” that covers this text would be fertile ground for discussion and exploration through writing.  What is it about “home” that makes it inclusive?  Why are we so ready to identify “otherness”?  This route would include an exploration of the language and dialect from the text.  The narrative touches often on the idea of charity and outside aid – from the government, and from private charities in the form of boxes of random worn out clothes and household items shipped from up north to the poor of Appalachia.  The 1965 video of Charles Kuralt in Kentucky entitled “Christmas in Appalachia” gives students an idea of the sudden awareness of Appalachia developed by the rest of the country.

            Finally, we can’t ignore the story of Denise Giardina herself.  A native of McDowell County and a professor at West Virginia State University, this ordained minister of the Episcopal Church and prolific author continues to challenge environmentally disastrous mining practices and the status quo.  Such a good example of “Appalachian” may help students who have internalized the constructed stereotype of Appalachians as poor, dirty, lazy, addicted, and ignorant.  The message isn’t that we aspire to something greater by becoming something different, but that what we are already is as unique and full of potential as any other region. Again, this returns to the goals of this class and PBE, “Engaging students – including ourselves – as producers, not just consumers or objects in media representations.” 

On a final note about the media representation of Appalachia, I found this series of articles that I thought everyone might like:

http://walkyourcamera.com/perpetuating-the-visual-myth-of-appalachia-part-one/

http://walkyourcamera.com/perpetuating-the-visual-myth-of-appalachia-part-two-2/

http://walkyourcamera.com/perpetuating-the-visual-myth-of-appalachia-part-three/

              

Developing an Understanding of Place-Based Education and Critical Literacy

Post 1: 

Developing an Understanding of Place-Based Education and Critical Literacy

by Caroline Miskovsky 

This blog post is the first of many that will give an overview of the discussion and the articles that we’ve read for our Teaching Appalachia course at West Virginia University. For this week’s discussion, we read four articles that introduce, defend, and discuss two teaching strategies, place-based pedagogy and critical literacy. We also discussed these two methods synthesized as critical pedagogy of place. Here is a brief synopsis of each article (pulled from the abstract, because, well, if it ain’t broke…) so that I can refer to them more easily throughout this post. You can scroll to the bottom of this post to find a complete reference list.

Peter McInerney, John Smyth, and Barry Down, “‘Coming to a place near you?’ The politics and possibilities of a critical pedagogy of place-based education”

“This paper explores the theoretical foundations of place-based education (PBE) and considers the merits and limitations of current approaches with particular reference to Australian studies. The authors argue that there is a place for PBE in schools but contend that it must be informed by a far more critical reading of the notions of ‘place’, ‘identity’ and ‘community’.”

Jessica Parker, “Critical Literacy and the Ethical Responsibilities of Student Media Production”

 “This study highlights 12th graders in California who produced a documentary on Latino immigration and chronicles the complex interactions between student-generated media, critical literacy, and ethics.”

David Gruenewald, “The Best of Both Worlds: A Critical Pedagogy of Place”

“Taking the position that “critical pedagogy” and “place-based education” are mutually supportive educational traditions, this author argues for a conscious synthesis that blends the two discourses into a critical pedagogy of place.”

Mitzi  Lewison, Amy Seely Flint, and Katie Van Sluys, “Taking on Critical Literacy: The Journey of Newcomers and Novices”

“Examines the understandings and classroom practices of two groups of teachers: newcomers and novices. Provides insights into the concerns teachers have when they begin implementing critical practices in their classrooms.”

Gruenewald’s critical pedagogy of place calls for us to use the environment and communities of our students to “challenge the assumptions, practices, and outcomes [of] dominant culture and conventional education” (2003, p. 3). This critical approach with a basis in place calls for social change from the inside, for students to define the problems of their day and work to solve them, and for place to give regional educational efforts a distinct flavor and appeal for those who live there. For teachers, this requires creativity and extra effort. For students, this approach asks them to challenge, sometimes uncomfortably, the assumptions of the dominant culture—both of their nation and locally. This emphasis requires teachers and students to embrace the political nature of education, and for students to bring their ability to negotiate power into focus.

Like some of the authors, we were a little apprehensive that critical pedagogy of place would be a hard sell in a “public policy environment, obsessed…with imposed curriculum, standardized testing, and performance management regimes” (McInerney et al. 2011, p. 5). The sturdiest value in these big ideas lies in the shifts toward immediacy that they encourage in the classroom. Sure, we can read about Hester Prynne in The Scarlet Letter, but why not strengthen her potential relevance for someone in West Virginia with a character like Lace in Strange as This Weather Has Been (http://annpancake.blogspot.com/ )? We read these four articles and supported many, if not all, of the claims they suggested; we were most anxious about the viability of these texts in a real-life classroom with real-life content standards breathing down your neck.

The Lewison, Seely Flint, and Van Sluys article gave us a chance to clarify critical literacy’s main points and define what we thought this approach could look like in a West Virginia classroom. The authors define critical literacy as that which “disrupt[s] the commonplace, interrogat[es] multiple viewpoints, focus[es] on sociopolitical issues, and tak[es] action and promot[es] social justice” (2002, p. 382). We thought that boiled down, these factors involved using an inquisitive mind that takes nothing for granted, and that examines power structures as they play out in our perceptions, actions, language. Teachers and students should then take those findings and use them to inform their behavior moving forward in everyday interactions and in larger social change. Once we had our characterizations clarified, we did our best to come up with actions within our classrooms that could make use of our definition of critical literacy.

We might organize our English language arts units thematically, instead of generically. This allows us to examine one theme—let’s say poverty—from multiple mediums. We can involve perspectives that are shut out of most conversations, and challenge all the implicit and dangerous baggage that often comes rooted in a social issue—here, that poor people are lazy, dirty, and deserve their lot. We can use Appalachian authors like Lee Maynard or Nikki Giovanni (http://www.leemaynard.com/ and http://nikki-giovanni.com/) in our units, questioning their perspectives as much as those in the traditional canon. We can be sensitive to the fact that dialect and linguistic patterns are part of identity, while still challenging some of the racist and bigoted assumptions that are nonetheless embedded in our culture. We can ask our students where power structures in our state have come from, and what those people are doing with the economic and political control in their hands. In any case, corporations like Massey Energy and Walmart certainly have a complicated relationship with the West Virginians they employ.

The devil hides in the details of the execution of critical place-based education. McInerney, Smyth, and Brown admit that there are limits to what place-based education can do for our classrooms. It cannot, for example, replace a global perspective entirely. We live in an interconnected world and asking students to become so myopic that they have little concern for anything outside their own backyard would obviously be counterproductive. Place-based education can give students ownership of their environment and what they can do to change it, but we must be careful to avoid discussing place as a “romanticised relic of the past”—a phenomenon that happens all too often when we reminisce about the rolling hills of home (McInerney et al. 2011, p. 9).

We will instead look at place for the reality and possibility it represents, as a “dynamic institution with regional, national, and global connections” (McInerney et al. 2011, p. 9). We must, like Carmen and Brittany put it in class, “interlace a global and local perspective in our lessons,” because a failure to connect place-based education to the global environment sterilizes efforts to make real change. We can insert a local perspective to give meaning to global problems that seem too far away to matter, or ask students how to solve a big problem by using resources in their own community. This approach, as so many of the authors emphasize, gives students a real sense of agency and efficacy about social change. No one is looking to erase national and corporate responsibility for the economic and environmental disasters that have characterized West Virginia’s history by asking students to take a stand. But if we don’t at least begin the conversation, will anyone else really care enough to clean up the coal slurries or reduce welfare dependency?

What about this process might be uncomfortable for students and their families, teachers, and the community at-large? Put simply, can makes things awkward when we disagree with those closest to us. Critical pedagogy calls for us to make change where stasis and stagnation are easier routes; when we criticize ourselves, our neighbors, and our own way of life, the call to action is at once much more difficult to make and much harder to ignore. Won’t parents come banging on our doors, wondering why their son or daughter is doing a project on prejudice in West Virginia if race and sexuality are taboo subjects in their household? Do we want to be seen stirring the pot—after all, is it worth our jobs or our place of respect in the community?

For Brandi, a student-centered approach answers many of these concerns. When students design their own projects, they are deciding for themselves where they draw their line in the sand. They are deciding exactly how far they want to take a West Virginia or Appalachia-centric social action project. We teachers are simply giving them the venue to ask questions about a hot-button topic. Parker is illustrative here: her piece about critical literacy and student film-making explores two students’ documentaries produced for a senior thesis project in California. The teens were given a year’s worth of materials on immigration, poverty, and class struggles. They were then instructed to make a documentary film about immigration to engage directly with the issue and distill their narrative point of view on the subject. Their teacher did not goad them to feel one way or another, though Sam raised the point that the year’s materials likely had a particular social justice-y political flavor that could influence the bend of the student documentaries.

Perhaps we could take student choice even further with West Virginia teens. Students could research any social issue germane to the state, then make a documentary film informed by their heavy research. Students could read works of fiction and watch films related to their social issue just as the teens in the Parker article did, but they would in a sense design their own curriculum. As Audra put it, our students are already presented with artificial binaries that box them into for-or-against camps. Using our classrooms as spaces to hold their opinions up to the light and try on new views—especially for the issues that matter to them and their families—is something teachers have simply got to do. In the national news, West Virginia is a single issue state: coal and coal mining disasters dominate what little West Virginia news coverage the media moguls allow. What would happen if we asked our students how they felt about education, job opportunities, and economic growth in our state, or the tourist industry, protection of civil liberties, and environmental issues? We are too often polarized by the Friends of Coal or I Love Mountains bumper stickers on our cars, and a project that allows West Virginia teens to do their own research and form their own opinions could do a lot to broaden the scope.  

Above all, we thought that these conversations would be uncomfortable, yet worthwhile. Growing pains are OK. We will make mistakes, stumble, and come across stubborn roadblocks. That’s OK, too. We just can’t afford to be afraid to care because of these inevitabilities. 

References

Gruenewald, D. (2003). The best of both worlds: A critical pedagogy of place. Educational Researcher, 32 (4), 3-12.

Lewison, M., Seely Flint, A., & Van Sluys, K. (2002). Taking on critical literacy: The journey of newcomers and novices. Language Arts, 79 (5), 382-392.

McInerney, P., Smyth, J., & Down, B. (2011). ‘Coming to a place near you?’ The politics and possibilities of a critical pedagogy of place based education. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 39 (1), 3-16.

Parker, J. (2013). Critical literacy and the ethical responsibilities of a student media production. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 56(8), 668-676.