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A place for Writing 12 students to read each other's writing, to critique, to suggest, to improve.
About Me
- Brad
- Former adult teacher who loves island beaches. Happy homebody and family man; once devoted dog owner, now without Tashi, my Tibetan Terrier. I prefer the absurdity of the imagination to the absurdity of imagining nothing.
3 comments:
Trying to adopt a humorous tone here. What do you think? Does it work?
Before I began to teach writing I never knew how much writers like to talk about writing.
It saves us from doing the writing I guess.
The possibilities for creative procrastination are endless—endlessly enlightening, as well, thankfully enough. In a Writing 12 class we tend to talk quite a lot. Yes, we do write, but then we read aloud and discuss and dissect. From this we learn how it is to be a writer.
There’s the terror of the blank page, for starters. I like to call it a “warm up” but my students know better. They’re going to be asked to write something, to make something out of nothing, to face the blank page. To calm them I write along with my students, projecting my words onto the screen.
At least then the students can feel mildly entertained while I hammer out some fairly innocuous and possibly reasonably good first draft. Or, on good days, the students don’t notice what I do, or, on even better ones, they note something up there and incorporate it into their own piece.
Whatever works. That ought to be the mantra of a writing class. If talking about it makes the process more transparent, then talking about it we’ll do. If practicing unpronounceable Greek rhetorical tricks might help us vary up our sentences, then we’ll do that, too.
At the end of every class, we dig into more substantial matters, discussing the words on a projected page. Sometimes, it is whether that semicolon is too “heavy” a mark in some spot or other. Another time, it is all about a character and if that character is believable. Here’s where a thick skin helps. We might have really fallen in love with that mark of punctuation; it’s been a reliable friend, handy for showing others we are real “writers” after all.
Writing is infinitely various in purpose and scope. We brush along the surface (comfortably enough with satisfying moments along the way) but it’s only that, the surface. Sometimes, I feel a bit of anxiety at my limited knowledge. I’ve learned how much I do not know by teaching the class for five years.
To be continued . . .
Book Review: “Change or Die” Pt 1
The bold title of this book is a reference to what normal doctors usually tells their recovering heart patients to try and scare some sense into them. They are trying to permanently change their patient’s unhealthy living habits: like smoking, high fat diet and not exercising. These “scare tactics” usually work for a while, but studies proved that over 90 percent of the patients, eventually, begin to feel fear and hopelessness and return back to the destructive habits that caused the ill effects and eventually pay the high price. This highly contrasts with the miraculous work of Dr. Dean Ornish and his heart patient recovery program that has a success rate of 77 percent.
Another great example used in the book is the modern criminal justice system. Criminals are placed in jail, serve their time and then get released only to reoffend soon after. This has been statistically proven time and time again. One case study found that 30 percent of former inmates were rearrested within six months, and 67.5 percent of them were rearrested within three years. This, again, contrasts highly with the work of Dr. Mimi Silbert and her Delancey Street Foundation that has a criminal rehabilitation success rate of 60 percent. Those former felons and severe drug addicts go on to live normal productive lives and without any cost to the taxpayer (Delancey inmates run two profitable businesses)
Not only does Alan Deutschland give these great examples but many others. So, why the big difference? What makes Dr. Ornish’s and the Delancey program and so many other uniquely positive turnarounds so successful? Deutschland breaks it all down to three, relationship based foundations that need to be in place to make change easy and permanent. They are: relate, repeat, and reframe. Or in other words: new hope, new skills, and new thinking. Deutschland explains the three keys here…
Book Review: “Change or Die” Pt 2
“Relate: You form a new, emotional relationship with a person or community that inspires and sustains hope. If you face a situation that a reasonable person would consider "hopeless," you need the influence of seemingly "unreasonable" people to restore your hope--to make you believe that you can change and expect that you will change. This is an act of persuasion--really, it's "selling." The leader or community has to sell you on yourself and make you believe you have the ability to change. They have to sell you on themselves as your partners, mentors, role models, or sources of new knowledge. And they have to sell you on the specific methods or strategies that they employ.
“Repeat: The new relationship helps you learn, practice, and master the new habits and skills that you'll need. It takes a lot of repetition over time before new patterns of behavior become automatic and seem natural--until you act the new way without even thinking about it. It helps tremendously to have a good teacher, coach, or mentor to give you guidance, encouragement, and direction along the way. Change doesn't involve just "selling"; it requires "training."
Reframe: The new relationship helps you learn new ways of thinking about your situation and your life. Ultimately, you look at the world in a way that would have been so foreign to you that it wouldn't have made any sense before you changed.”
I found this 2007 personal/business growth book fascinating. Alan Deutschland has articulated some core truths about how change happens and how outdated our society is going about it. I liked how he finds distinct similarities between these real and very different examples of society and also what needs to be done to utilize resources to benefit everyone in a win win scenario. This book would definitely help individuals, groups and even corporations who are stuck in a rut of familiarity and comfort and are having a hard time adapting to new environments. In the immortal words of John F. Kennedy, “For time and the world do not stand still. Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”
– 684 words
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