Home-made for the Holiday

I make hot cross buns for Good Friday in the same spirit that I make mince pies for Christmas–with a sense of dread. Not because of my mild gluten intolerance, but because I have an eating disorder, specifically overeating. I love food to the point that I fear it. I cannot have certain foods in the house. Like mince pies and hot cross buns. But I make them because, if I don’t then who here will? This is a rhetorical question; I am English, and I live in South Florida. So, no one. But I will make them, this year. 

Last year was life-plus-work-plus-study-plus, so it didn’t happen. This year is different. Last year I wouldn’t have known that what I am doing is embodied rhetoric; this year, I can name what I know. And in the naming, it moves from something ethereal, something imagined, to something real, something recognizably important.

A Gift, A Calling

I will make hot cross buns because that is what my mother always did, always does, even though she cannot eat them–her reason is sugar intolerance. But she never really made them for herself, she made them for us, for whoever was coming over for coffee, or lunch, or tea. My mother’s ministry is other people, and mostly feeding them. She has a gift for hospitality, home baking, and care.

My ministry, my calling, is words. I blocked my ears to this for almost a decade, dropping out of high school and then working in press photography, before going to college for journalism and getting a graduate job in law. Following my move from England to the US, I gave into my calling and became an English teacher, something I’d thought of since I was fourteen years old.

For eight years, I learned things I couldn’t put names to. I knew that my students needed to write about themselves, for themselves; I knew that standardized testing was killing creativity; I knew that we needed to go outside and see what we wanted to write about; I knew my high-schoolers needed poetry, songs, videos, picture books, jokes, and stickers. But I didn’t have the right words to identify or claim these, beyond a sense of “I know this works” until I became a student too.   

Now I know, and I can call on each by name. I know that my students need expressivist and rhetorical writing, I know that students need to write for understanding instead of checking boxes in multiple-choice tests. Now I know that writing in place is important for an immersive writing experience, empathy, and connection. And I know that there is no division between academic and non-academic, that every genre is a gateway to learning, and that images and videos are texts, too. I know, too, that collaboration and community are the two of the most important things in the world, and students need to know this too. 

I had understood all of this through teaching, but knowing is not the same as naming and doing. Through my studies at NSU, and especially through the SoFlo Writing Project, which I took part in last year and looking forward to doing again this year; my experiential knowledge is now intertwined and strengthened through developing my intellectual knowledge, and this creates the instigation of actions through embodied rhetoric. In short, I now have the research to back up and the confidence to do what I know works. 

Acts of Becoming

I make hot cross buns because, by doing so, I am embodying my mother’s expertise and love. I take part in the SoFlo Writing Project because I am embodying what I asked of my students, and what I know to benefit them–to become more of myself through personal writing, to open up to learning opportunities beyond the classroom, to discover new ways of writing, and to build community with my peers.

We have a few spaces remaining for Summer 2025. Don’t miss out, apply today!