SONOMA STATE UNIVERSITY
University Affairs Office
1801 E. Cotati Avenue
Rohnert Park, CA 94928-3609
(707) 664-2057
e-mail: jean.wasp@sonoma.edu
University Affairs Office
1801 E. Cotati Avenue
Rohnert Park, CA 94928-3609
(707) 664-2057
e-mail: jean.wasp@sonoma.edu
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 22, 2003 File #353
Contact: Jean Wasp, Media Relations, (707) 664-2057
From Henry David Thoreau to Alice Walker — Social Protest
Literature
Class Looks at How Writers Make Change
By Sarah Epting Though slavery has been abolished for over 140 years, Tim Wandling, an English professor at Sonoma State University, urges his social protest literature class to find parallels between what Harriet Beecher Stowe was trying to accomplish in her novel, "Uncle Tom’s Cabin," to the aims of activist writers today in the realms of sexism, homophobia, and racism.
Wandling has set up his social-protest literature class to bring a well- rounded learning experience for the students by empowering them to create social change in their own community along with gaining the knowledge of how groups and individuals have done so in the past.
Through service learning projects, Wandling's students this semester have signed on to help homeless families in transition through a program called Family Connections, or to work with St. Joseph's Health System to promote neighborhood activism.
Besides having his students discuss the war in Iraq and examine how American citizens are protesting it's very existence, Wandling encourages students to see the issue of the war in Iraq from every side. Students write letters to a mother of a soldier who was killed in battle, and to a mother whose child was imprisoned for protesting the war.
Wandling creates a more complete learning experience as he leads his students to study and understand activist writing, to practice and participate in activist work and writing, to understand the ways writers
speak to audiences, to examine the place in literary history of social-protest literature, to reflect upon the literature with reference to their own life and times, and to make a difference in their local community.
Throughout the semester, students read classic authors such as Thoreau, Dickens, Melville, Jack London, Upton Sinclair, along with more contemporary authors such as Alice Walker and Barbara Kingsolver.