Volume 5 1999
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Legal Writing The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute Volume 5 1999 Plenary Presentation Reading, Writing, and Rhythm: A Whimsical, Musical Way of Thinking about · Teaching Legal Method and Writing ........ Charles R. Calleros 2 Articles The Art of the Fact ................................ Jethro K Lieberman. 25 A History of Writing Advisors at Law Schools: Looking at Our Past, Looking at Our Futke .................... Jessie Grearson and Anne Enquist 55 Technology in the LRW Curriculum - High Tech, Low Tech, or No Tech ............. Maria Perez Crist 93 How Individual Differences Affect Organization and How Teachers Can Respond to These Differences .................Mary Barnard Ray 125 The Legal Writing Relay: Preparing Supervising Attorneys to Pick up the Pedagogical Baton ..... Lisa Eichhorn 143 Teaching First-Semester Students that Objective Analysis Persuades ............................. Julie M. Spanbauer 167 Practices and Procedures Sailing Through Designing Memo Assignments .. Lorraine Bannai Anne Enquist, Judith Maier, and Susan McClellan 193 Legal Writers Writing: Scholarship and the Demarginalization of Legal Writing Instructors .. Toni M. Fine 225 OPENING PLENARY PRESENTATION TO THE LEGAL WRITING INSTITUTE JUNE 18, 1998, ANN ARBoR, MICmGAN The theme of the 1998 Conference of the Legal Writing In stitute was "Advancing Professionalism." This theme recognized that Legal Writing faculty are professionals as teachers, writers, researchers, and scholars. It was fitting that the opening ple nary session focused on their most central task: teaching. The plenary speaker exemplifies professionalism. Professor Charles Calleros of the Arizona State University College of Law is an accomplished teacher, scholar, and musician. As the au thor of Legal Writing and Method (3d ed.) and numerous law re view articles on free speech, he has done much to draw atten tion to the discipline of Legal Writing. At the conference, Professor Calleros drew on his diverse talents to offer a unique presentation employing his ideas on teaching music to provide insights on teaching Legal Method and Writing. Because his presentation was uniquely entertain ing and interactive, it would be difficult to transform it into a traditional scholarly article. Moreover, such an effort would de vitalize the product. Therefore, Professor Calleros presents his offering in an eminently accessible form as a play. 1 2 The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute [5:1 Reading, Writing, and Rhythm: A Whimsical, Musical Way of Thinking about Teaching Legal Method and Writing* Charles R. Calleros** A Play in One Act Roles: The Facilitator and the Instructor, who may be played by two or more persons or by one person who uses a vest or other prop to signify a shift from one role to another. Los Gitanos - played by an ensemble of flamenco musicians (taped music may be substituted). American Schemata - played by a small combo of musicians ca pable of playing American popular and jazz music (a single pi anist or taped music may be substituted). The Students - played by participants at a conference or teach ing seminar. Setting: A classroom, preferably one with a variety of audio-visual equip ment available. Facilitator: Good Morning. Welcome. I'm looking forward to learning a great deal this week, and I view this plenary session as an op portunity to set the tone for the exchange of ideas that we all hope will occur over the next few days. Our specific topic this morning is teaching techniques, and I'd like to start by defining my goal and my methods in this presentation. First, I don't pretend that I personify great teach ing or that I have a magic checklist of teaching techniques. But I know that we have a wealth of experience, information, and brash new ideas in this group, a wealth that will be shared in various ways over the next three days. So my goal this morning * © Charles R. Calleros 1998. ** Professor of Law, Arizona State University. This article is a more detailed ver sion of the author's presentation at the Legal Writing Institute's summer conference in June 1998, which in turn is a greatly expanded version of one prepared by the author for the Institute of Law School Teaching in Spokane, Washington in June 1997. 1999] Reading, Writing, and Rhythm 3 is simply to get us started, to get us excited about the prospect of sharing ideas about teaching. I hope you are in the mood to interact with one another and to have some fun. My method will be simple: I will try to teach you something, something that is probably new to most of you: I want to teach you a simple rhythm used in Flamenco music and dance. I hasten to add that I will not call on individuals other than vol unteers; otherwise, however, when I step into the role of teacher, I'll use a variety of teaching techniques that are cus tomarily used in law schools. Some of them may be effective, but others may not be so helpful, and you can reflect on how you re ceive those teaching techniques as students. From time to time, we will step out of the roles of students and teacher so that we can critique the teaching techniques and share ideas with each other. So, loosen up, leave your inhibi tions at the door, and let's have some fun! You will know when I am stepping into my role as flamenco teacher, because I'll put on this vest at those times. [If both parts are played by the same person, the Facilitator now dons a vest or uses some other prop to signify his or her transformation into the role of the Instructor.] Instructor: Welcome to the flrst day of class. Today we'll begin by mas tering the rhythm needed to accompany a flamenco guitarist who is playing a tango flamenco or a flamenco rumba. You must leave class today feeling confident about your ability to rehearse this rhythm, because you will encounter this rhythm often in practice. Moreover, our study of this rhythm will introduce you to fundamental ways in which flamenco singers, dancers, and musicians interact musically, forming the basis of a musical method that is the foundation for much of your work. As you be come more comfortable with that process, you will acquire the tools necessary to become proficient in a variety of flamenco rhythms. Your reading assignment for last night provided some his torical background. Allow me summarize that material. Fla menco is the traditional folk music and dance of Los Gitanos de Andalucia, the gypsies who migrated to southern Spain through the Middle East and North Mrica, from places as far away as India. As the music of a social and economic underclass, tradi tional flamenco passionately expresses a wide range of emotions, from grief, loss, and longing, to humor, flerce pride, and joy. 4 The Journal of the Legal Writing Institute [5:1 Moreover, members of this flamenco culture traditionally per formed this music and dance for one another, as a means of ex pressing those emotions. To some extent, those emotions are expressed in the fla menco rhythms. Many of the traditional flamenco rhythms are arranged in 12/8 time, which may be unfamiliar to Western ears. I want to show you a brief excerpt of some traditional fla menco rhythms in a musical form known as bulerias, because you will be performing that rhythm by the end of the year in your "moot Flamenco Festival competition," and I want you to keep that goal in mind as we work toward it throughout the year. To help provide a link to flamenco tradition, we have a guest practitioner from the local bar with us today, who will serve as our flamenco version of Learned Hand as we briefly demonstrate the bulerias rhythm, toward which you will be working this year. [Performance by Los Gitanos: Here, the Instructor can play a brief recorded excerpt of a stirring but intimidatingly complex bulerias rhythm in repeating patterns of 12 beats each.1 Of course, a live flamenco guitarist, accompanied by a palmero2 or a percussionist performing on caj6n,3 is even better.]. Can you guess the underlying theme of that music form? Bulerias is often performed in a manner that exaggerates the drama and pride associated with traditiomu flamenco so that it communicates a bit of humor, an inside joke, a parody of our own sometimes inflated egos, even as we try to outdo one an other. We perform it for each other to help keep us on our toes and help us keep our sense of perspective. Believe it or not, by the end of this year, you'll be perform ing those complex rhythms. But we will begin today with some simpler rhythms associated with tango flamenco4 and flamenco rumba. Those musical forms were influenced by Moroccan and 1 Suggested excerpt: first 30-60 seconds of the opening song ("Bordando un capote") on Carmen Linares's CD "Cantaora," issued by Riverboat Records of London and distrib uted in the United States by Stern's in New York, FAX (212) 925-1689. 2 A palmero is a flamenco performer who accompanies a guitarist or singer by pro viding palmas, rhythmic clapping of hands. 3 A cajon is a wooden box played as a drum with the hands. Long popular as a mu sical instrument in Peruvian folk music, it has recently evolved into a popular means of accenting the driving and complex rhythms of flamenco. 4 This should not to be confused with Argentine tango music and dance, which has much less in common with tango flamenco than Viennese Waltz music and dance has with a Louisiana Cajun waltz. 1999] Reading, Writing, and Rhythm 5 Cuban music, resulting in a rhythm pattern that will be more familiar to us.