Former UW student Marios Rocha is the focus of a documentary, Mario’s Story, screening Wednesday November 11 at the GW Law School. The film chronicles his wrongful conviction on murder charges and his struggle, largely through writing about his situation, to have that conviction overturned
Former UW student , Mario Rocha, is the focus of a
documentary, "Mario's Story". The film will be screened on Wednesday, November 11, in Stuart 101
(Law School) from 6:00-8:30. A Q&A will follow.
Professor Robin Marcus has this to say about her former student: “Mario Rocha was my student Spring semester 2009. On the first day of class - by way of introduction - he told us he had done 11 years of a double life sentence in prison having been falsely accused of murder, and had only been released the year before. Everyone was stunned; Mario is such an affable, easy-going guy that his revelation seemed incongruous and it took a few beats before incredulity ("Did he really say that, did I hear that right?") morphed into disbelief and then into wonder. The documentary, "Mario's Story" chronicles the trial, the conviction and the coalition that mounted an extraordinary effort leading to an appeal and the overturning of his conviction. Mario was only sixteen when he was convicted and spent much of his time in prison writing about not only his own ordeal but other cases of injustice in the American criminal justice system. In spite of his ordeal he is an optimistic young man who has a voracious appetite for learning and for social justice; in a few years he'd like to be in law school. Because the focus of the class was on a related subject i.e. African American speech and the rhetorical themes involved including liberation and rebellion, Mario regularly found openings in class discussion to make observations about his fight to be heard, the research he undertook to publish his story in scholarly and prison publications, and the guidance he received from mentoring academics. He also spoke about the difficulties of incarceration, difficulties made even more tragic by his innocence. As a speaker, he is now in great demand by human rights and social justice organizations.”
And Mario has this to say about his University Writing experience: “My UW course was my favorite class last semester because it. made me think critically about a language that I had only experienced as a young Xicano from Los Angeles and as a California prisoner--never as a student. Watching Spike Lee's Bamboozled at Sankofa in Howard at night is still my fondest memory. I remember walking back to GW with my UW peers, discussing the heavy subject matter--the history of racism towards Blacks in American entertainment--and I remember thinking, ‘I am so glad I took this course.’ The same can be said about my path to GW as a whole.”
Wednesday, November 11, 2009
UW 20 Student is the Focus of Documentary Mario's Story
Monday, May 11, 2009
UW20 Alum Stefanie Fischer reflects on her UW20 Experience
We have to take University Writing. We do not have a choice. If you give any student a chance, they will not take a four credit course with a lot of work and a small chance of completing the course with an ‘A.’ Most students enter the class thinking that they already know how to write, that they already know how to research, and that University Writing is just one more thing the university does to make our lives difficult.
This article was written by UW20 Alumn, Stefanie Fischer
It's true, the course was a shock at first. It turns out, I quickly learned, students do not really know how to manage their time. Most of us rarely had to exert even the slightest effort in high school and we enter college thinking we can manage it all. Micro-assignments, readings (that originally take us upwards of four hours apiece because we were never really taught how to read anything that does not come easily to us), and three research essays rarely makes for an enthused effort. We stress over completing the assignments in time, and sometimes we don’t. We think about not going to class, and again, sometimes we don’t.
But if you try, just once, just a little bit, you start to realize something: this is interesting, hard and complicated and sometimes above our comprehension, but we want to get it. We want to feel like we can graduate into the real world in three years and publish a book and go to seminars and maybe even be considered a knowledgeable expert. Most of us will not continue into whatever specialized topic our UW20 course focused on, but most of us will find ourselves held to a higher level of academia and knowledge in three years time.
By the time we leave, at least by the time I left my course, we feel a little bit better about it. We have figured out how to read and analyze at least some parts of essays and papers and publications we do not know. We did not just write a research paper composed of research compiled by other scholars and occasionally the inclusion of a critical review of that research. We conducted our own research, we make our own conclusions, we complicated our own theses, and we left feeling semi-confident that we can be scholars.
A funny thing happens then: you start to care about your work. You find yourself in the library until three in the morning, not because you have a paper due, but because you know it is not perfect and that bothers you. Because you know it can be better, that you can do better, and that someday, your work will mean more than a grade. You find yourself in the library at three in the morning writing a paper that you think could actually mean something to the scholarly world, and you want to make a real contribution. That is what University Writing, or a good University Writing, does for a student. It shows us how to be a scholar, and convinces us that we can be one.
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
University Writing & Research Symposium Held This Week
Over 600 first-year students slated to exchange insights and advice in the 6th Annual Writing & Research Symposium, a campus-wide capstone event sponsored by the University Writing Program. In addition, the Symposium features a Keystone Lecture by the Hon. Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Strategies for the Global Environment. Ms Claussen's lecture, entitled "Answering the Climate Challenge: Reflections on the Journey," is co-sponsored by the Women's Leadership Program and the University Writing Program.
2009 Symposium Poster Design by Mi Sun Kwon
Where & When
The Foggy Bottom & Mt. Vernon Campuses
of The George Washington University
Thursday-Friday, April 23-4.
The 6th annual University Writing and Research Symposium will take place on Thursday, April 23 through Friday, April 24 on the Foggy Bottom and Mount Vernon campuses of The George Washington University. Over the two-day event 170 student-panelists will be speaking to a combined anticipated audience of over 600 people.
In panels of three of four speakers, in roundtable discussions, in research poster sessions, or even in dramatic readings of original works, students in the first-year writing course (UW20) present their research and writing in a public forum that includes fellow students, faculty, and members of the broader DC community.
The event offers student-researchers the opportunity to present their research in order to see how the concerns they address in their own projects connect with concerns of other researchers and matters of public interest. Since students present their work while it is still in progress, get the opportunity to see what their peers in other first-year writing classes are doing and to get useful feedback on their work. As a result, discussion at the Symposium focuses as much on the uses, values, and processes of research and research-based writing, as it does on the topics of the research projects themselves.
Dean of Freshmen Frederic Siegel describes the Symposium as "one of the year's best programs," noting that "the intellectual engagement of freshmen is one of [the University's] most important priorities and the Symposium works perfectly in this regard."
The 2009 Program includes panels on a wide variety of topics, including "Faith, Doubts, & Suspicions," "Enforcing Moralities," "Personal Transgressions," "Labor Issues," "Rethinking Constitutional Democracy," "Traumatic Events," "Holocaust Studies," "Cold War Comics," and "The Packaging and Promotion of (Post)Mdern Identities" to name just a few.
On Thursday evening at 6:45, at the Eileen Claussen lecture, student Mi Sun Kwon will be recognized as the winner of the 2009 UWRS Poster Design Contest. Congratulations are also due to runner-up Cynthia Figueroa.
The Symposium is co-directed by Professors Kathy Larsen and Michael Svoboda, of the University Writing Program.
The Spring 2009 University Writing and Research Symposium was organized by the First-Year Writing Faculty of the University Writing Program, with sponsorship and support from the UWP, the Elizabeth J Somers Women's Leadership Program, Mount Vernon Campus Life, Gelman Library, the University Bookstore, and the Office of the Dean of Freshmen.
For more information on the Symposium, please visit the Symposium Website at http://www.gwu.edu/~capstone/symposium.htm.