Disrupting Spaces with Truisms Part 3

Disrupting Spaces with Truisms

Part 3

This is part 3 in a series of posts about a current project in our Writer's Workshop class at Central Gwinnett High School. We are working with Dr. Goss, from Kennesaw State University. Dr. Goss is an art-focused professor of Language Arts who is on my dissertation committee. This project is inspired by his suggestions and current work with university students but is also largely inspired by work he has previously done with his own high school students in Buffalo, New York. In this project, we have explored the art of Jenny Holzer, an artist who uses words to form "Truisms" that are put into public spaces in large and disruptive ways. These Truisms are largely up to the interpretation of the reader, pulling on semiotics, and reader response theory. Truisms stand as art, with meaning coming from the individual. These short, powerful truths originated from young adult literature (YAL), and the reading choices of the students in the class. You can read the two previous parts of this project here:

Beyond Independent Reading: Disrupting Spaces with Truisms Part 1

Disrupting Spaces with Truisms Part 2

A lot has happened since the last post. Students decided that they wanted to do some advertising before putting out the Trusisms they created out into the world. This project has always seemed to center on subversion, and going against dominant narratives or culture in the school--that's the whole point of disruption, right? Well these advertisements disrupted the space of the school all on their own. 

Students used thick double sided tape to place these in major walkways throughout the school. Ironically, these lasted longer on the walls than the actual Truisms would, but that's a post for another day. 

Students also put the Google Voice voicemail together. They collaborated on a script, standing in a semicircle around a laptop and offered suggestions about word choice. After about fifteen minutes they had it ready to record. Standing around a laptop, they all choral read the script into the laptop and then used a voice disguiser to modify the recording. They were going for "cheesy hacker" and "ommanous technology person." You can listen to the recording if you click HERE (this will probably be updated in the future for reasons I'll discuss in a later post, so I'm linking the original file). 

These advertisements worked...well. Very well. Too well? It generated buzz, but that buzz became fear. Soon it was reported to an assistant principal who (totally doing the right thing) took the signs down, responding to the menacing tone that students felt were implied by the ads. I feel that it is important to note here that as much as some would like to claim that words and spaces are neutral, these advertisements demonstrate how spaces bring their own experiences to words just as much as people with their culture and lived experiences. School shootings and threats are very much a part of the culture of school spaces and the students who inhabit those spaces. Our school, according to student survey data, demonstrates that students often do not feel safe here. While it is easy to blame the students for reading threatening messages in the advertisements, it is important to note that the space these advertisements were placed carries its own culture and conditioned expectations.

In my next post, I'll discuss the placing of the student Truisms, and the outcome. We've had to make some adjustments to our projects, but there was some great discussion on how this only made things meaningful. Dr. Goss mentions that constraints often give way to form, and that constraints help define what is possible that allows for more being done inside the lines that can be mapped out.