ABSTRACT
The NEH Institute was like a vitamin B-12 shot for the soul. I left with an energy and excitement that I had not felt since graduate school. Five weeks at Harvard engaged in intellectual inquiry about a subject that was both personally and politically significant! I was so anxious to return to the classroom and share what I had learned that my fall syllabus was planned before my bags were packed to leave Cambridge in July. It would be a novel experiment—using the Civil Rights Movement as a theme for a freshman composition class—but one that seemed so appropriate for where I was teaching that year. Valdosta State University (VSU), part of the Georgia system, serves a mostly rural population in the state's southern third. Many people are convinced that the movement never touched this place, and too many more are convinced that it never should have. Students often tell me that they love to debate social issues in English class, that they want to read and write about what is personally relevant to them. What better subject than one so central to Southern history, one that still evokes tension in those willing to talk about it at all? Before going to the institute, I had argued in a series of essays that this tension would not disappear until Southerners engaged in some open, honest dialogue about the past, and now was my chance to put this belief into action. All I needed was a group of captive freshmen.
