Quotes

Question: Why use quotes in your writing?

Answer/Quote: “Great quotes can help sell your queries to editors. Used as leads, quotes can pull your readers into your story. In the middle of your article, quotes can act like locomotives pulling the reader along while helping you make your main points. They can also aid in writing a satisfying conclusion to your story. Plus, quotes can add life to otherwise dry subjects. So how do you get engaging quotes? Follow these tips:

> Find unique quotes.

> Plan your interview.

> Listen for potential follow-up question.

> Pick up the phone or meet face to face.

> Take advantage of a recorder.

> Put your source at ease.

> Leave your own opinions and biases out of the interviews.

> Look for fresh expression.

> Double-check your quotes.

Title:”9 Tips for Quotes That Sparkle.” JK Borchardt. The Writer (October 2011), 13.

Comment: The one tip that stands out for me is “Leave your own opinions and biases out of the interview.” Too often, questions become speeches featuring the interviewer’s point of view. The Writer is a publication by writers for writers. I highly recommend it, especially for creative writing teachers. RayS.

Cliches

Question: “How do I know if something is a cliché?”

Answer/Quote:”George Orwell described clichés as those images, concepts or phrases that have ‘lost force.’ Most clichés probably started off as fresh and exciting but have lost their energy over repeated use. For example: He was tall, dark and handsome. Her heart skipped a beat. She worked like a dog.”

“We’ve all heard these phrases before and understand what they mean. But they don’t evoke an interesting image or a compelling emotion. In fact, images probably don’t arise at all.”

 “We use clichés as an easy way to express a sentiment.” Writing is about precision. ‘So, if you’ve heard it before, it’s a cliché….”

 Title: “How Do I Know If Something Is a Cliché?” Brandi Reissenweber. The Writer (October 2011), 7.

Comment: The Writer is a publication by writers for writers. I would recommend that you purchase a copy of The Writer for October 2011 and use Brandi’s full article with your classes. I’m sure this question has come up in your writing classes. RayS.

Rhetoric of Indigenous People

Note: The entire issue of the September 2011 journal College Composition and Communication is devoted to the rhetorics of indigenous people. For example, several articles deal with the American attempt to educate the Cherokee.

One of the authors defines the term “survivance” as coined from “survival” and “resistance.” The message is plain: The native peoples used their indigenous rhetorics to analyze and criticize  and discredit the European and Western concept of colonialism to marginalize native people by trying to assimilate them into the dominant culture. In reading about these native authors, students learn the power of writing to resist. 

 Comment: This issue of College Composition and Communication (September 2011), is a keeper. You might skim it to begin with, but you will come back to it again. The articles are significant and well written, too. RayS.

The Future of English Teaching

Question: What are your thoughts about the future of English teaching?

Note: The editor of the special September 2011 issue of English Journal, Leila Christenbury, posed the following questions about the future of English teaching. You can read about the answers she has gleaned from multiple audiences in her article, “Then and Now: ?The Thoughts of NCTE Members in 1960 and in 2010.” Leila Christenbury. English Journal (September 2011), 133-138.

> What to expect in the year 2061

> The change I would most like to see in English teaching during the next 50 years

> Ten of the important studies in research in English

> Important unsolved problems in research in English

> A book that has influenced my thinking about the teaching of English

> What worries me most about the teaching of English

> An article that I especially remember [My title. RayS.]

Comment: If you care to respond to these issues, send them to raystop2@comcast.net. I’ll publish the results. RayS.

Two Quotes about Writing

Question: How should one teach writing?

Answer: “ ‘Writing is not too difficult to be achieved,’ wrote Lou LaBrant in 1957, adding, ‘but the components call for direct, full experience rather than for mere learning about the process. Despite this there are today in the freshman classes of our nation’s colleges some hundreds and even thousands of freshmen who are having their first experience in selecting a subject and writing their ideas about it. They have outlined, parsed and punctuated bits, have perhaps written paragraphs (parts of pieces), but they lack experience with the full production.” P. 103.

“In the end, LaBrant leaves us with a vivid metaphor for the distinction between school writing and authentic writing: ‘Knowing about…writing and its parts does not bring it about, just as owning a blueprint does not give you a house.” P. 104.

Comment: A reminder. Grammar exercises are not the same as actual writing. RayS.

Title: “Revisiting LaBrant’s ‘Writing Is More than Structure’ (English Journal, May 1957).” PL Thomas. English Journal (September 2011), 103-104.

NCTE: An Important Omission--Ethics

Question: What can a teacher do when forced to perform an unethical act in teaching?

Answer/Quote: Nothing. Read on: “But an even more important regret about the structure of NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) is what I wish Ruth Cline’s (1990) NCTE president) work on an ethics code had been adopted by NCTE. We need such a code…. That is, a K-12 teacher has a right to an ethical working condition (not being asked to teach in a harmful manner). In NCTE’s Code for Right to Ethical Conditions, a K-12 teacher could file a complaint about ethical conditions (‘I am being required to perform an unethical act by my district’), and NCTE could review the matter and make a recommendation—just as it does under the Right to Read Policy where teachers report censorship cases….” P. 43.

Comment: A question: What ethics policies exist throughout education? RayS.

Title: “Buckle Up for Interesting Times.” Miles Myers. English Journal (September 2011), 33-42.

Reading and Interpreting Poetry

Question: How can I help students to interpret poems from several points of view.

Answer: Students given a variety of well-recognized poems. Each student selects one poem.

 > First they respond to the poem they selected with a personal interpretation, citing correctly quotations from the poem. .

> Second, they research information from the content of the poem that will help them to understand it.

> Third, they read a critical essay by a professional critic on the poem.

 “Finally, students revise the three parts of the assignment into a complete analysis of the poem.” P. 83.

 Title: “A Scaffolded Essay Assignment on Poetry.” Jane Arnold. Teaching English in the Two-Year College (September 2011), 82-83.