The Write Time, the Right Place

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — David Jolliffe believes literacy happens when people find stories that challenge, engage and captivate them. He founded the Arkansas Delta Oral History Project by forming writing groups that paired University of Arkansas graduate students with teachers and students from six high schools in the Delta. Together, they uncovered some of these rich oral histories and then recorded them, through producing plays, readings, narratives and videos.

“Once the students found a real internal motivation to write, they produced wonderfully engaged writing, which was my goal all along,” said Jolliffe. “I picked the Delta because that is an area where issues in literacy are challenging. We were also able to give students there a real look at what coursework would be like if they came to the University of Arkansas when they finished high school.”

The project, held during the spring 2007 semester, began with a two-day intensive workshop at the Delta Cultural Center in Helena. It will end April 20 at the center, with a celebration from 10:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. that will include performances by most of the participating students and their University of Arkansas mentors.

When Jolliffe, a professor of English in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, contacted teachers at the six schools - located in Forrest City, Lee County, Marvell, McGehee, Helena and Pine Bluff - he asked principals to dedicate one class to the project. He didn’t want to impose any restrictions on the type of class, but just asked that it be taught using oral history as an approach. During the semester, students and mentors have shared their work over the Internet, and on March 9 and 10, the students came to Fayetteville for two days of cultural activities and fun.

The flexible approach to subject matter resulted in an eclectic group of projects, ranging from the importance of hunting clubs to men in the Delta to how McGehee survived the great flood of 1927, Southern food, the integration of black and white high schools and the 1972 boycott of businesses in Marianna by blacks when two high schools merged and a controversy arose over which school’s mascot would be chosen. Eventually both sides compromised by coming up with a new name for their athletic teams.

All works produced will be archived at both Mullins Library at the University of Arkansas and at the libraries of each of the participating schools. Jolliffe, who holds the Brown Chair in English Literacy, plans to continue the project for at least five more years, each year adding at least three or four schools.