The English Department’s new Common Text Program, which began with the simple decision to require the reading of the same non-fiction text in every first-semester College Writing class, has been expanded to embrace theatre, film, essay-writing, on-campus appearances by playwrights and off-campus coffee-house discussion groups.  

“It’s incredibly exciting to watch this unfold,” says English Prof. Paula Haines, a member of the original Common Text Committee. “The unity of these things seems almost limitless—it just doesn’t stop.”

Following the selection of the common text—Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America,” which was adopted following a vote of the department faculty and was required of first-semester students beginning this fall—a film series was assembled, starting in early September, with weekly, Thursday-night movies in O’Leary Hall chosen to reflect the workaday theme of Ehrenreich’s best-selling book. The Oscar-winning “Norma Rae,” with Sally Field as a gritty southern millworker, was among the early offerings; “Roger and Me”, Michael Moore’s 1989 satirical documentary of life in Flint, Mich. after the GM plant closed down, drew a large crowd in mid-October; December screenings will include “The Corporation,” “Fast, Cheap and Out of Control” and “Office Space.” 

“Students packed the room for ‘Roger and Me’,” says Haines. “And a lot of faculty were there, too. Once the lights went on and people started talking to each other, and the kids realized that the folks next to them were teachers—well, that was really fun to see. The faculty and students together—a chance to show that those relationships don’t have to end at the close of a 50-minute period. I’ll tell you, it was very moving.”

Meanwhile, the faculty were assigning essays on related topics: work, class, consumerism, anything related to the themes of Ehrenreich’s book. And not long ago, the Department announced an essay contest—with awards up to $100—also to be an offshoot of “Nickel and Dimed,” open to anyone enrolled in College Writing for the fall semester.

The harmony doesn’t end there. On Feb. 5, a new play by Lynn Nottage. “Intimate Apparel,” will open at the Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell. The product of an evolving partnership between the MRT and UMass Lowell, the play is the depiction of the life of an early 20th-century black seamstress and her struggle for self-respect. Like Ehrenreich’s book, it was chosen following a vote of the English Department and will be read—again, as a common text—by all students of College Writing II.

But the immersion goes deeper still. Sometime during the course of second semester, as a result of funding proposed in a grant, some or all of the play’s participants—actors, set directors, director, possibly even the playwright—will visit the campus for a series of “talk backs” with students. One goal of all this, according to a statement released by the English Department, is to “tie the general-education goals of critical thinking and communications skills to a live, community-based cultural experience.”

And finally, in an effort, says Haines, “to embrace the fact that we’re an urban campus, that Lowell is a college town,” the Common Text Program will be hosting a series of after-theatre discussions at venues in downtown Lowell. “The idea is to integrate the downtown into the whole experience, maybe to hold the talks at one of the coffee houses in town, or even the Textile Museum…

“The students, I’m confident, would be open to that. Throughout all of this—the films, the theatre, the reading, all the ways we’re connecting with this project—they’ve just blown me away with their openness to things.”