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On the Road With Dixie

Chris Benson
Clemson University
Clemson, SC

Our minivan winds through the rolling hills of York County. As we pass a crossroads, Dixie says, "We're near the town of York. That's the home of Dori Sanders, the novelist."

Our conversation turns to African-American novelists, then to poetry, then to the mission that's taken us on the road again—the teaching of writing.

We stop at a small bakery to buy oatmeal cookies for students at Chester Middle School where we're headed.

I'm fortunate to be on yet another road trip with Dixie Goswami, a teacher whose impact on education, from these Southern hills all the way to Alaska, has been as dramatic, appealing and cross-cultural as her name.

Though Dixie Goswami was hired at Clemson as an English professor in 1984, she was no stranger to the University. A native South Carolinian, she had earned her master's degree in English at Clemson in 1966. That experience, along with her meeting and marrying Clemson Alumni Professor Bhuvenesh Goswami, is a story in itself.

But the story of Clemson, for the state, and for thousands of school children across the country, is Dixie's devotion to the teaching of writing.

After her master's degree and nearly two decades of teaching and research at Rutgers, Leeds University in England, the University of Massachusetts, the Bread Loaf School of English at Middlebury College in Vermont and other schools--Dixie returned to Clemson.

In 1989, she received the Class of '39 Award for Excellence for outstanding teaching, research, and community service. That award reflects the direction of her energy at Clemson--creating networks for writing teachers and taking writing, integrated technology, into the workplace, field, street or wherever communication is needed.

These are a few highlights of the projects and networks she has had a hand in starting:

• Networks for English teachers, linked with Clemson's English Department, have led to several programs beyond the state's borders. In 1991, the Bingham Trust funded three such programs begun at Clemson that eventually supported teachers in a dozen states to develop and share innovative literature and writing projects for students.

• REACH--Rural Education Alliance for Collaboration in the Humanities is a network of S. C. teachers and educators at all levels. The REACH project and the Clemson Forestry and Agricultural Network were among the first organizations to support S. C. public school teachers in networked, on-line activities.

• South Carolina Cross-Age Tutoring was a program linking at-risk students as tutors to younger students. In 1994, its final year, the project was active in 50 schools, most of them rural, and involved thousands of young people.

• Writing and Performing Across Cultures, now known as Writing and Performing Across Communities, is a program in the performing arts department to promote creative drama in S. C. schools. Last spring, over 250 young people from around the state gathered at the Brooks Center for performances of original student scripts adapted to the stage by Clemson performing arts students.

• The Bread Loaf Rural Teacher Network has a site at Clemson's Strom Thurmond Institute, where Dixie is a senior scholar and a member of the literacy and community service networks team. This national network, coordinated by Dixie, funds fellowships for rural teachers to attend the Bread Loaf School of English, a summer graduate program of Middlebury College, where Dixie is a chaired member of the faculty. The program, supported by the DeWitt Wallace-Reader's Digest Fund, has already provided over $280,000 in support of S. C. teachers and will continue funding professional development for them through the year 2001.

On a dollar-and-cents basis, Dixie and her colleagues in the Clemson English Department have raised more than $5 million to support English teachers and students in South Carolina and those associated with the Bread Loaf School of English.

Fittingly, last April, Dixie received the Richard Riley Award from the S.C. Council of Teachers of English for her commitment to and support of students and teachers in South Carolina. It was only the second time the honor had been bestowed.

In receiving it, Dixie immediately dedicated it to all the Clemson faculty and staff in the English Department, the college and the Strom Thurmond Institute "who take seriously the goal of reaching out to rural communities, providing support and encouragement for this kind of service."

We arrive at Chester Middle School, park the minivan, check in at the principal's office, and proceed down the hall to Doris Ezell's classroom. Her seventh-grade students are reading excerpts from an epic poem, "The Ramayana."

Dixie begins talking to the students about what they're reading. In between bites of cookies, the students pay close attention to what she says.

They don't know where she's been or what she's accomplished, but they sense her genuine care and regard for their ideas. and suddenly, they become her students.

Chris Benson is editor of the Bread Loaf Rural Teacher Network Magazine and a research associate of the Strom Thurmond Institute.