"Reading is Fundamental"

So went the old NBA literacy promotion slogan. While the NBA marketing gurus most likely did not mean it this way, reading is fundamental to writing. See, for example, the recent post on the "Ordeal by Cheque" activity.

Great writers are great readers. You learn to write by reading. When we read, we internalize and familiarize ourselves with new words, ways of structuring sentences and crafting metaphors, techniques for developing and supporting arguments, etc. We learn to appreciate how combinations of words sound when strung together. We gain an appreciation for the writer's ability to fashion a unique voice through word choice and sentence patterns.

In short, we learn to write by imitating what we read. The modernist poet Ezra Pound believed imitation to be an essential stage in the development of a poet. He himself went through a phase of writing Robert Browning-like dramatic monologues.

Having students read popular magazines is a great way to supplement other writing assignments and activities. Despite its political biases, The New Yorker can be useful tool in this regard. You might, for example, have your student read a particular article for the types of transitions an author uses to make his or her ideas flow and cohere. Then, ask them to try it on their own in their writing. You might also have them read for things like sentence variety, types of evidence used, techniques for opening and ending articles. You might even have them read for overall structure.

When I would teach comparison/contrast essays to may students I would always present as models an article on the two varieties of coffee beans from a very early issue of Martha Stewart Living and a column from the back page of Golf World comparing Tiger Woods to the long-forgotten underdog, Bob May. Text books can be indispensible, but often times the best tools for learning to write on the magazine rack.

A Room with a View--This Sunday

PBS' Masterpiece Classic leaves behind the works of Jane Austen this Sunday, April 13, and makes a seamless transition into the world of E.M. Forster with a new adaptation of the classic A Room with a View. It is a straightforward, engaging, and emotionally satisfying tale of romance, class conflict and independence. (Plus, it boasts lush Italian and English backdrops.) Appropriate for highschoolers of all ages, this screen adaptation would be ideal paired with the novel and Forster's short and highly readable Aspects of the Novel. The slim volume offers nuts-and-bolts literary theory, hearty and logical common sense stuff it is difficult to find today. This is where Forster explains his famous ideas on "flat" versus "round" characters, for example.

Read Aspects and Room concurrently and explore Forster's ability to enact his theories in his own fiction.

Charlton Heston and Shakespeare

In the wake of Charlton Heston's death, The Weekly Standard has posted on its website a letter Heston wrote to the magazine in May 1997. Heston eloquently defends Shakespeare as the preeminent writer in the history of the English language--but also argues that his work is best understood by actors, not writers. Just as eloquently, he rails against those academics who have made their careers out of trying to prove that Shakespeare didn't really write Shakespeare.

This question of authorship and authenticity invariably comes up when introducing students to the Bard, and Heston's views on the matter are clear, well-reasoned, and forceful.

The Waste Land and Ella Fitzgerald

What does T.S. Eliot's masterwork, "The Waste Land" have to do with the music of Ella Fitzgerald? If you're curious, do check out this enjoyable and enlightening post over at The Powerline Blog. Difficult literature such as "The Waste Land" can often begin to seem less impenetrable when it is paired with another closely-related, but simpler text, and this is an excellent example.

Plus, you can share some great music with your student at the same time!

Video of the Week

The Harry Ranson Center at the University of Texas-Austin has just made available online episodes of The Mike Wallace Interview from 1957-1958. The legendary TV journalist interviews politicians, actors and actresses, athletes and other public figures of the day. Of particular interest for homeschool highschool students are his interviews with former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry Kissinger, Adlai Stevenson, artist Salvador Dali, architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and novelist Aldous Huxley.

Transcripts of interviews are also available through the website.

What's Wrong with the 5 Paragraph Essay--Part 2

In our last installment, we looked at how the traditional 5 Paragraph
essay becomes less viable the longer the paper is that the student is
asked to write. We also discussed the fact that longer essays demand
more detail and more complex exploration of ideas. This leads into
another weakness of the 5 Paragraph essay model.

The 5 Paragraph essay boils any argument or subject down to 3
supporting ideas. No more. No less. Three of course is an arbitrary
number. Who is to say that there three and only 3 supporting ideas?
What if a student has 4 valid supporting ideas? What about 5? Or 6?
The 5 Paragraph essay can stunt the development of students' thoughts by
holding them to an unnecessarily restrictive formula. Discussions of
intricate social and historical issues, or detailed analysis of a literary text cannot often be handled sosimply. In fact, handling them in such a way unfairly lead a reader to
conclude that a particular issue has not been fully understood or
considered by a reader.

For this reason, as students--particularly those in high school--become
more sophisticated in their thinking and opinions, it is best to begin
distancing them from the comfortable and reassuring 5 Paragraph model.

Activity--"Ordeal by Cheque"

The acts of reading and writing are inseparable. We tend to think of
them as discreet, mutually exclusive activities. That could hardly be
further from the truth! When we are writing, we are constantly doubling
back, re-reading what we have just written so that we can craft and
complete the rest of our sentence, the rest of our paragraph, the rest
of our essay or letter. When we are reading, our mind is writing the
words across our imagination, helping us to form a mental picture of the
words we process.

If you're looking for a fun and challenging way to illustrate the
twinned tasks of reading and writing, share "Ordeal by Cheque" with your
student. Wuther Crue's "Ordeal by Cheque," originally published in
Vanity Fair in 1932, is, at first glance, a most unconventional short
story. It doesn't look like a story at all. Instead it looks like a
series of ordinary personal checks.

Challenge your student to tell Crue's story. This will involve
critical thinking and reading skills, attention to detail, logic, a dose
of American history and a bit of imagination. As students read and
re-read the checks, they will "write" Crue's story. There is no answer
key, no "traditional" version of the story. This gives students a
chance to defend the narrative choices they make based on the evidence
Crue provides. Students can do this activitiy individually, but it can
be even more fun in groups.