Introduction

My newest book on human rights

Spatializing Cultural Landscape to Advocate Human Rights argues “The Space of Human Rights” in the novels of Margaret Atwood; “The Space of Landscape in Fiction” in works by Willa Cather; “The Space of Modernism” in Toni Morrison’s Beloved; “The Space of the East Village” by Nella Larsen; “The Space of Haiti” Zora Neale Hurston’s Tell My Horses (Ethnography); “The Space of the South” of Flannery O’Connor, a civil rights thinker; Chapter 7 “The Space of North Carolina”, Stephanie Powell Watts, a Pushcart Prize winner, and her unique gifts that defend human rights.

Immigration trauma studies letters and archival evidence to acknowledge immigration space as a methodology to teach peace and to initiate hope for survival. I argue that we implement change through writing for peace. Trauma of immigration defines the human experience but shares truths that we apply as a vision of peace for the future. Spatializing human rights through a civic values project has been my theoretical focus from 2003 to 2018. I taught, presented lectures at conferences, and engaged in human rights thematic papers and books to seek peace through defining and practicing human rights and civic values. The topics were based on study of oral traditions, cultural heritage, and memory as a source of reference in the pedagogy at the Northampton Community College, Lehigh Carbon Community College, Pennsylvania State University Lehigh Valley campus, Lehigh University and University of Maryland University College. I present research focused on the cultural landscape of specific literary works and associated activities such as fine art, music, poetry, digital humanities, and primary source activities that the author promotes to gain radical compassion. Further, I advocate evidence-based change through service writing, volunteering at local and regional as well as national community engagement events, to inspire diversity, multiculturalism, tolerance, human rights, and civic values. Metacognition through spatializing uses the fine arts to teach multidisciplinary methodologies for education for all ages. My research in the area of metacognitive pedagogy for the 21st century writing student prepares me to continue research in the area globalization of the literary canon which requires applications of the aspects of oral history traditions. My class is organized to become a learning community with a focus writing short stories as authentic assessments to develop student voices. As cultures converge in global 21st century classroom, students of multiethnic backgrounds require varied models to succeed. Reading, writing, and arithmetic which served our industrial society may be enhanced by a new fourth “R” or remembrance as educational focus for the age of technology and multiculturalism. Language is the basis of classrooms whether traditional, enhanced or distance.

Maryann studies letters and archival evidence to acknowledge space as a methodology to teach peace. In fact, the study of peace defines space to me. Previous research and background for this book concern Maryann’s recent publication as editor and contributor of the book entitled, American Women Writers, Poetics, and the Nature of Gender Study. Published in 2016 by Cambridge Scholars Publishing, she investigates pedagogical practices in American women’s literature rooted in the foundation of feminine myth. She studies the processes of authors who create voices of characters from the past. Her projects study language, to focus on metaphorical grammatical constructions, unique and specific with form and function. She interprets works to capture the essence of style, as well as the rhetorical function of the basic structures of grammar, diction, and syntax in a literary work as message and meaning. She discusses the useful social functionality of literature as well as theoretical processes of the literary scholar, regarding the power of writing for cultural change. We use a model of linguistics called poetics. In literary studies, poetics question the meanings of literary works. The book that emerges is not just a story of long hours, little pay, and hazardous working conditions; it is also the uniquely American story of women writers working together to make a new life for themselves. She studies the processes of authors who create voices for fictional or real characters, for healing from abuse or neglect.

I acknowledge space as a methodology to practice human rights and civic values. In fact, the study of human rights and civic values define the human experience. She applies the conceptual frameworks of the arts and meta-ethics (ethos). She seeks to resolve questions of human morality by defining concepts such as good and evil, virtue and vice, and justice and crime. Imagination, individualized by each writer, captivates us. We become agents of change if we share the new formations that research and reading offer us. We can take action and go further than our heroes and heroines. Furthermore, building bridges through civil rights awakens conscience and radical compassion.

Reflection on the study of literature and space is centered on a remembrance of a marvelous days of writing. The basic formula includes wisdom of Plato’s Phaedo as a backdrop to our efforts to write. Also, thoughts on literacy also apply to knowledge of mechanisms that form writing goals. Writing is a human right.

Archives are primary sources. Letters, excerpts of evidence, survive to share moments of humanity. Journals share inner life. Art is essential as a space to view human creative instinct as well as short fiction and novels. Space (study of diversity, understanding global perspective, cultural awareness of diverse peoples through analytical strategies, close reading, the analysis of figurative language, and the comprehension of narrative structure). “Civil Rights, Cultivating Peace Project” initiated during the summer of 2017. She attended a workshop at Lehigh University by the Lehigh Center for Community Engagement. concerns four presentations as part of a project to teach tolerance in 2017 and 2018. My goals are a case study about my scholarship in writing with the specific curriculum based on a definition of civil rights and civic action plan with 1) civic voice 2) humility 3) commitment to positive growth 4) understanding capacity, streamlining 5) collaboration and diversity with a focus on writing as action and recording the writing in a book about the significance of the writing of Stephanie Powell Watts. A civic writing project includes short stories and novel by Watts, drafting definitions of civic values and civil rights, volunteering, reflecting, establishing community, dialogue approaches, global engagement, active learning with a scholarly approach, an inherent study of Semantics.

I. Lehigh University English 011 Fall 2017 She demonstrates life story writing, journaling, and formal study of civic values in a setting to promote and sustain peace. The study emulates the goals of our concentrations on human rights and social justice in our department of English. With our civic voices, we humbly commit to positive growth in the study of the novel. Paramount to the study of civic values is the development of self-efficacy and personal agency. Our semester focuses on a practice of four projects in the form of evaluative essay argumentative structure, to select, honor, and practice our civic values. Stephanie Powell Watts, a Pushcart Prize Winner, is the main theme. I also teach Margaret Atwood’s A Handmaid’s Tale.

II. As a scholar, September 10, 2017 The significance of O’Connor as a civil rights thinker.

III. At a Community Lecture series for a lecture series called SAGE at Penn State University at the Penn State Lehigh Valley campus, she shares latest research on Tolerance on December 1, and 2017and presents a slide show and lecture to signify the action of researching information about civic values.

IV. She presents a paper for the CEA College English Association Conference on April 7, 2018 a prose elegy “Flannery O’Conner: A Prose Elegy” from Thomas Merton’s 1966 collection of contemplative essays Raids on the Unspeakable. The collection was first published in 1960 and subsequently published in 1961, 1964, 1965, and 1966. The text includes a Prologue, fourteen essays, and original art by Merton. He celebrates her “dry-eyed irony that could keep looking the South in the face without bleeding or even sobbing” (George Kilcourse). His words honor the late writer Flannery O’Conner. She is honored with a Professional Achievements Award by the College English Association.