i started reading ‘Rural Voices: Place COnscious Education and the Teaching of Writing.” I chose this book because I do not often think of the importance of relating to the students in the rural communities that surround C-U; most of my time has been spent in urban or suburban communities yet I am aware of the importance of considering community.

The book is a collection of essays written by teachers about how to teach students from rural backgrounds; the editor, Robert Brooke, writes in the introduction about his migration as an academic to Nebraska from more urban places. He cites Theobald in suggesting the importance of considering place in education that links the individual, community, region, history and ecology.

The first chapter, written by an elementary teacher, focuses on how she teaches writing to a range of students from first-fourth grade in the same classroom. Their community project involved mapping the town, and linking memories of grandparents who had gone to the same school as these students.

The author of the second chapter entitled, “A geography of stories” organizes the chapter into readings, people, places. In each he writes about how he started with authors from rural backgrounds or people from the community and brought them into the classroom literaly or figuratively. The he used his won written poems to share with students, then asking them to write about their experiences or descriptions of their “Places.” The journey of writing together develops from an “I” to a “we.”

I find this idea of pace-based education very intriguing. Considering how we are situated in particular places, how this shapes who we are seems important to help students connect to their environment and to each other. I think it would be particularly important for kids to share their stories of “place” with others in quite diverse settings, e.g., connecting kids in NYC to these kids in Staplehurst, Nebraska.