Topic: "You Mean, Write It Over in Ink?"

10-second review: Just a reminder of what it was like to teach composition without word processing.

Title: “You Mean, Write It Over in Ink?” L Odell and J Cohick. English Journal (December 1975),48-53. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: The date of this article was December of 1975. The computer did not begin to infiltrate schools until about 1980. The title of the article gives you some idea of the tediousness of the task of revising when students had to rewrite—even the parts that were OK. No wonder students did not like to revise and teachers preferred teaching grammar exercises to teaching students to write.

I went through the word processing revolution. When students revised by hand the copy was laden with red marks, with cross-outs, arrows to show changes in position of the text, and barely legible cursive handwriting. Word processing made writing, especially revising, almost easy. And each copy, with black print on clean white paper, looked like a finished product, even if it was not.

Some issues at that time: How to encourage English teachers to teach word processing when they themselves were completely unfamiliar with and afraid of using the computer. Should students learn to type correctly before they learned word processing? Should students abandon paper and pencil now that the computer had made writing so much more attractive? What happens when the word processing program is so complex that the students worried more about which key to push than about expressing their ideas in writing? And these were only some of the issues with which we struggled in the early 1980s.

Word processing revolutionized students’ attitude about learning to write. Today, when word processing is taken for granted, no one remembers what we pioneers went through to adopt this technological miracle. RayS.

Topic: Teachers' Comments on Compositions

10-second review: Do students understand what we mean by “awk,” “more detail needed,” “paper lacks unity,” “topic sentence?” and “evidence?”

Title: “You Mean, Write It Over in Ink?” L Odell and J Cohick. English Journal (December 1975), 48-53. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: It might be a good idea to put student compositions on the overhead with my comments and ask students what these comments mean to them. RayS.

Topic: Critical Thinking

10-second review: Begin by having students respond to advertisement or TV commercials. What questions do the students have about the advertisement’s messages?

Title: “You Mean, Write It Over in Ink?” L Odell and J Cohick. English Journal (December 1975), 48-53. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: Of course I’m old and have probably lost my ability to comprehend. I view on TV more and more ads that simply don’t make sense to me. Seems like a good place to begin my own and students’ training in asking questions for the purpose of improving critical thinking. RayS.

Topic: Teacher-Student Writing Conferences

10-second review: Define specific tasks for the conference and give students a written record of what was discussed—or have the student write a record of what was discussed—supplemented by teacher clarification, if needed.

Title: “The Student-Conference and the Writing Process.” CR Duke. English Journal (December 1975), 44-47. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: A record of what was discussed in the conference will provide continuity from conference to conference. RayS.

Topic: Revision and Proofreading

10-second review: For most students proofreading is the same as revision. The author of this article suggests that the instructor first read the composition through as a whole and then comment on unity, thesis, development, clarity, and smoothness which require revision. Second, read to provide corrections in sentence structure, usage, punctuation and spelling, which are the stuff of proofreading.

Title: “What about Revision?” R Baird Shuman. English Journal (December 1975), 41-43. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: Provides a clear differentiation between revision and proofreading. Revision involves the whole composition. Proofreading involves the sentence and grammar.

If the instructor follows this approach to revision and proofreading, the students can soon learn to use the same approach themselves.

Unity. The writer folds a paper width-wise and on one side writes the main idea of the composition. Partner reads the composition and writes the perception of the main idea on the other side. Unfold the paper and compare main ideas. If they generally agree, the paper is probably unified.

Clarity. Partner reads the composition again. Whenever the partner encounters an idea that is not clear, the partner puts a question mark in the margin next to the sentence(s) that is/are not clear. Writer reviews the question marks, decides if the development is not complete or if the word choice is not clear and revises as necessary.

Smoothness. Tries to anticipate the awk.’s. Partner reads aloud the composition. If the partner stumbles or goes back to repeat in reading, underlines the part on which stumbled or has repeated. Writer reviews the underlined parts and decides if expression needs to be smoothed.

Spelling. Writer reads from last word to first. If you read from first to last, you will read for comprehension and will miss the details of each word. Reading from last to first focuses on the words and their details.

Grammar: Writer reads from first to last slowly in order to find the incomplete or run-on sentences, use of the passive voice, dangling modifiers, problems in parallelism, sexist language, usage and punctuation, etc.

RayS.

Topic: Case Studies in Teaching

10-second review: In working with student teachers, use case studies to discuss problems they encounter in teaching. What problems are they encountering? How have they tried to resolve them? What are some alternative solutions?

The article that suggested this activity in working with student teachers concerned the teaching of values in which students wrestled with ethical dilemmas. The article brought to mind the value of discussing case studies in preparing classroom teachers for the real world of teaching.

Title: “Discussing Moral Dilemmas in the Classroom.” J Mackey. English Journal (December 1975), 28-30. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: The case study approach could also be used in inservice programs in which teachers learn how to write a case study for discussion. The case study involves the following elements: Setting. Situation. Tentative Resolution. Results. Questions.

Example of a case study:

Setting: Community college writing course. Teacher was an adjunct instructor.

Situation: Young man with severe writing disabilities that prevented him from putting words, sentences and paragraphs together coherently. I had received no advanced information about this student’s problems nor about the school’s program for students with severe learning disabilities.

Tentative Resolution: Student wrote for ten minutes a day for the entire semester. I corrected his writing and he rewrote, incorporating my corrections so that he could visualize his writing as coherent writing.

Results: In a semester, the student was able to put together coherent sentences and paragraphs and even a bare-bones composition.

Questions: How do you grade this student in a composition class in which students are expected to write college-level compositions? Because the student did what I asked, I felt he earned A’s for his efforts and his progress. However, his writing was not college-level work. How should I have graded the student?

How could the school continue my work with this student? Nothing was available for me, an adjunct writing instructor, to communicate my concerns and efforts to other English teachers or to the department head. As it was, he would go on to the next teacher who would see that he had received an “A” grade, quickly determine that he was not a competent college-level writer and would severely penalize him for his writing.RayS.

Topic: Dealing with Parent Complaints about the Writing Program

10-second review: Go to the source. Talk to your English teacher about the writing program. If there is a problem with grammar, what is it from your point of view? Find out what the teacher intends to do about it. Read actual examples of your child’s compositions.

Title: “Grammar and Composition: Myths and Realities.” C Kuykendall. English Journal (December 1975), 6-7. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: Long ago, I found out that when people stand up in school board meetings and say that our students can’t read and write, I needed to find out from them exactly what they meant by “can’t read” or “can’t write.” Until the problem is defined, I couldn’t help to resolve it. “They don’t understand their textbooks” is a different problem from “they do not read anything outside of school.”

One time, the parents said their children were not being taught to write because they never saw any compositions coming home. When we were able to show them the collected compositions in the students’ folders, they recognized that the students were being taught to write. But we also learned that we needed to send the compositions home for their parents to see them before we filed them. We filed them, of course, so that students could analyze their progress from composition to composition. We also needed to send home the complete file at the end of the year so that students and parents could assess their progress together—before returning the file to keep for the following year.

We need to learn from parents their perceptions of the students’ problems in learning to read and to write. “They can’t read” and “They can’t write” are too general to be of any help in resolving the students’ problems. RayS.

Topic: Strategies for Teaching

10-second review: Make up a strategies toolbox. Each card answers three questions and gives an example: 1. What is it? 2. Why use it? 3. How does it work? 4. Example.

Title: “The Strategy Toolbox: A Ladder to Strategic Teaching.” KR Mehigan. Reading Teacher (March 2005), 552-566. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Example:

What is it? K-W-L

Why use it? Helps students systematically establish what they already know about a topic, what they want to know about the topic and what they learned from reading the chapter on the topic.

How does it work?

Students divide their papers into three columns.

Under the first column, labeled “K,” students brainstorm what they already know about the topic of the chapter.

Under the middle column, labeled “L,” they brainstorm what they want to earn about the topic from the chapter.

Under the third column, labeled “L,” students write what they have learned from reading the chapter.

Example:

Title of the story, “Miss Brill”

Column “K”: After reading one paragraph a column from beginning to end of the story, students tell what they already know: Miss Brill goes to the park each Sunday and sees herself as an important part of the activities there.

Column “W”: Why did Miss Brill go home that Sunday with her ego shattered?

Column “L”: Two young people made fun of her and laughed at her.

Comment: What I like about the strategies toolbox is that it forces me to define the strategy and its purpose. The next step should be for the students to develop their strategies toolbox. What strategies do they use when they read? What strategies do they use when they write? RayS.

Topic: Fluency in Learning to Read

10-second review: An emphasis on fluency in reading has become an important part of teaching children to read.

Title: “Reading Fluency Assessment and Instruction: What, Why and How?” RF Hudson, HB Lane and PC Pullen. Reading Teacher (May 2005), 702-714. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

The Importance of Reading Fluency in Learning to Read for Struggling Readers

Quote: “Reading fluency is gaining new recognition as an essential element of every reading program, especially for students who struggle in reading. Reading fluency is one of the defining characteristics of good readers, and a lack of fluency is a common characteristic of poor readers. Differences in reading fluency not only distinguish good readers from poor, but a lack of reading fluency is also a reliable predictor of reading comprehension problems. Once struggling readers learn sound-symbol relationships through intervention and become accurate decoders, their lack of fluency emerges as the next hurdle they face on their way to reading proficiency. This lack of fluent reading is a problem for poor readers because they tend to read in a labored, disconnected fashion with a focus on decoding at the word level that makes comprehension of the text difficult, if not impossible.” p. 702.

Reading fluency includes accuracy, rate and expression.

Timed Repeated Readings (Samuels (1979).

Quote: “Samuels was the first to describe the repeated readings method that is used so often today. It consists of a) selecting a short passage at the student’s instructional level (95% to 100% accuracy), setting a rate criterion, and c) having the student read and reread the passage over time until the rate criterion is reached. The oral reading rate is determined by timing the student for one minute and then counting how many correct words were read. Charting of the rate is recommended as a means of record keeping and of maintaining motivation with the student.” p. 708.

Quote: We recommend practicing with text at an independent level (95% - 100% accuracy). We also suggest using relatively short passages, texts from a variety of genres…. The accuracy, speed, and expressiveness of poor readers are more affected by text difficulty than average readers.” p. 710.

Comment: Other suggestions for activities are to read along with the student to try to stretch their ability to read fluently or read along with recorded material. The article gives information on some recorded materials. RayS.

Topic: Technical Writing

Topic: Technical Writing

10-second review: Suggests that students in a technical writing class emulate the types of writing used in a corporation or small business.

Title: “Using a Business Framework to Teach Technical Writing to Nonscientists.” B. Devet. Teaching English in Two-Year Colleges (May 2005), 407-416. The two-year college publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Comment: The business provides the models of the various types of writing used in the business. Students analyze the models. They prepare a publication explaining how to construct in writing each type with student examples. Before publication, a representative of the business makes suggestions for improving the students’ examples. Another approach to the first-year college writing course? Put the focus of first-year college writing on real-world genres from other disciplines and business? RayS.

Topic: Lesson Study--What Is It?

10-second review: Teachers study, analyze and discuss the presentation of lessons, especially from the point of view of the students.

Title: “Lesson Study: Teacher-Led Professional Development in Literacy Instruction.” J Hurd and L Licciardo-Mussa. Language Arts (May 2005). The elementary school publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Summary: Groups of teachers (4 to 6). Raise question. Develop a lesson plan to try to answer a question.

Sample questions: “How can I organize my writer’s workshop so that students are less dependent on me?” “How can I design a spelling program that is challenging and yet accessible to all students?” “How should I teach subtraction [in math] so that students stop making silly mistakes?”

The goal? See the lesson from the point of view of the student. The greatest effect of the process was “…developing the habit to view a lesson from the lens of a student, analyzing student thinking and misconceptions, anticipating student outcomes, reflecting on the data of student work samples….”

Comment: A very worthwhile goal. RayS.

Topic: On Expelling the Word "Whom" from the English Language

10-second review: The topic says it all.

Title: “Who Needs Whom?” Derek Soles. English Journal (May 2005), 34. The secondary school publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Quote: “If a word is rarely used in spoken English and if the rules that govern its use are so convoluted that they make the average language user beg for mercy, that word should be expelled, excommunicated from the language. Whom is such a word.”

Comment: The history of the English language shows that if people are confused by an item of usage, one of the competing words will be expunged by the public. “Thee” disappeared. “Whom” will disappear. And so will “lie,” “lay” and “lain” in favor of “lay,” “laid” and “laid.”

But watch out. If you tell Rover to “lay” down, the mutt will probably ignore you. He knows correct English when he hears it. Channel 6, Action News in Philadelphia has already expunged the use of “lie” and “lay” in it newscasts—you won’t hear any form of “lie” and “lay” because the reporters get it wrong—every time. It’s inevitable, the loss of confusing usage, but be careful to whom you are talking or writing. RayS.

Topic: What Is Missing from the Writing Curriculum?

10-second review: Close reading of and writing about text and mastery of and writing about complex data.

Title: “SAT Essay Has Schools Buffing Rusted Writing Skills.” Bloomberg.com. (May 26, 2005). Internet.

Comment: The statement in my 10-second review was by John Briggs, an English professor at the University of California at Riverside and a consultant to the College Board which is responsible for the 25-minute essay in the SAT. To interpret and write about difficult text or to master and write about complex data can not be completed in 25 minutes. Instead, to “pass” the 25-minute essay, teachers are teaching the formula for the 5-paragraph essay reduced to its simplest form. The 25-minute essay is a contradiction to the kind of difficult writing that Dr. Briggs says should be part of the high school and college writing curriculum.

And something else is missing from the writing curriculum. Reports in all disciplines and professions, modified to meet the requirements of each discipline. Let’s scrap description, narration, personal experience, cause and effect, classification , definition, comparison and contrast and analogy papers. They are fragmented skills that do not teach students how to construct reports in the real world. I’m not saying those skills are unimportant, but they can be learned as needed. RayS.

Topic: SAT Writing Sample

10-second review: Want a good grade on the SAT writing sample? Here’s how.

Title: “SAT Essay Test Rewards Length and Ignores Errors.” New York Times (May 4, 2005), Internet.

Summary: Dr. Les Perelman, MIT, was able to show that the longer the writing sample, the higher the grade. In addition, if the students are blatantly wrong in their use of facts (“Columbus discovered America in1842”), the students are not penalized.

Dr. Perelman was able to estimate accurately the score of a writing sample even though he saw it at a distance, without ever reading it, by observing just its length. “If you just graded them based on length without ever reading them, you’d be right over 90% of the time.”

Comment: Even the makers of the SAT seem to agree that the 25-minute writing sample is not very important or valid. The objective section that tests grammar and style is worth 75%. The writing sample is worth 25%.

The NCTE criticizes English teachers for emphasizing the five-paragraph essay. Teachers spend hours teaching to the 25-minute SAT essay, in which students produce the minimum five paragraphs. It’s all they have time for. And that becomes the writing program. Criticize the test, not the five-paragraph essay which is simply a model for organizing expository writing with appropriate development. Criticize the test for not allowing time for brainstorming and revising and editing and the time needed to develop the topic. Blame teachers and administrators for teaching to the test and not teaching writing. RayS.

Topic: Spelling.

10-second review: Spelling bees have become a national sport on ESPN. But they, with their exotic words, don’t help the average speller. Direct instruction in spelling is needed in the classroom.

Title: “Spelling Makes a Comeback.” Stacy A. Teicher. The Christian Science Monitor. May 17, 2005. Internet. csmonitor.com.

Summary: One approach to teaching spelling is to analyze the types of spelling errors in students’ writing and to develop lessons directed at the reasons for the errors. Another approach is to have a list of “no-excuse” words in which papers are returned for correction if one of those words appears misspelled.

Comment; I still like Harry Shefter’s [Six Minutes a Day to Perfect Spelling] approach to visualizing predictable misspellings (arGUMent. “Never chew GUM in an arGUMent”); (beLIEve. “Never beLIEve a LIE”). Shefter, formerly a professor at New York University, believes that most parts of most words can be sounded out and accurately spelled. However, words containing what is known as the indefinite vowel, the “schwa,” contain vowels that are not clearly pronounced. One needs to visualize those kinds of words, and Shefter suggests that you “blow up” the trouble spot and provide a “silly sentence” to help visualize the indefinite part of the word. Example: cEmEtEry. “ ‘EEE!’ she screamed as she passed the cEmEtEry.”

I suggest that, in addition to this entertaining gimmick, known as a mnemonic device, teachers, especially from fifth through 12^th grades, need to work consistently with predictable spelling problems: multi-syllable words (accidentally); -sede, -ceed, -cede words (supersede, proceed, exceed, succeed; intercede, etc.); words ending in –ful (spoonful); indefinite vowel (gramMAR); i before e (believe, receive, weigh); plurals of nouns ending in o (potatoes, pianos); doubling the final consonant (prefer’red; pref’erence; chop/chopped); words ending in –ly (absolutely; doubtfully); silent e (desire/desirable); prefixes (dissatisfied); c/s confusion (consensus); words often mispronounced (mischievous); words frequently confused (cereal, serial); silent letters (benign); plurals (mothers-in-law; story/stories; monkey/monkeys); students’ personal spelling demons.

See Teaching English, How To….Raymond Stopper, Xlibris, 2009, pp. 279-294. RayS.

Topic: Significant Sentences

10-second review: Why collect significant sentences?

Teaching English, How To…. Raymond Stopper. Xlibris. 2004.

The first group of sentences is from Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. The second is from Tolstoy’s War and Peace. The third group of sentences is from George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

“Significant sentences” are one consequence of my view about the reasons for reading literature. I collect them because they offer memorable insights into life and into any number of topics related to living.

How do I use them? Essentially, I collect and read significant sentences for the purpose of reflection.

Sometimes I will comment in writing at length on a sentence, relating the idea to my own experience.

Significant sentences become useful quotes when I write and when I engage in public speaking.

Finally, significant sentences are a record of the many hours I have spent absorbed in reading literature and nonfiction. They enable me to return to my favorite works and to think again about each work’s memorable ideas. They stimulate reflection.

Rereading significant sentences is a powerful method of recalling the ideas, spirit and essence of books.

Significant sentences are ideas and ideas are the reason for my being a life-long reader.

Topic: Why Read Literature? Significant Sentences (3)

One-minute review: Some of those “significant sentences” are in the three groups of sentences that follow. These significant sentences had meaning to me as interesting insights into living and life. Each of these “significant sentences,” while obviously related to preceding and following sentences in the book, could stand on it own merit as an idea. As Boswell said of one of Dr. Johnson’s works, “…almost every sentence…may furnish a subject of long meditation.” For me, “significant sentences” are ideas from literature and nonfiction that provoke reflections about life.

Significant Sentences #3: Do you recognize the following sentences and the book from which they were taken?

Dorothea, with all her eagerness to know the truths of life, retained very childlike ideas about marriage. ………. The really delightful marriage must be that where your husband was a sort of father, and could teach you. ………. All men needed the bridle of religion, which properly speaking, was the dread of the Hereafter. ………. For this marriage…is as good as going to a nunnery. ………. We mortals, men and women, devour many a disappointment between breakfast and dinner-time. ………. Certainly, the mistakes that we male and female animals make when we have our own way might fairly raise some wonder that we are so fond of it. ………. Mark my words: in a year from this time that girl will hate him; she looks up to him as an oracle now, and by-and-by she will be at the other extreme.

…correct English is the slang of prigs who write history and essays, and the strongest slang of all is the slang of poets. ………. A prig is a fellow who is always making you a present of his opinions. ………. For in the multitude of middle-aged men who go about their vocations in a daily course determined for them much in the same way as the tie of their cravats, there is always a good number who once meant to shape their own deeds and alter the world a little and the story of their coming to be shapen after the average and fit to be picked by the gross, is hardly ever told even in their consciousness, for perhaps their ardor in generous unpaid toil cooled as imperceptibly as the ardor of other youthful loves.

You never hear of a reform, but it means some trick to put in new men. ………. But Dorothea remembered it to the last with the vividness with which we all remember epochs in our experience when some dear expectation dies, or some new motive is born. ………. The effect of her being on those around her was incalculably diffuse: for the growing good of the world is partly dependent on unhistoric acts; and that things are not so ill with you and me as they might have been, is half owing to the number who lived faithfully a hidden life and rest in unvisited tombs.

The first group of significant sentences is from Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter. The second is from Tolstoy’s War and Peace. The third group of sentences is from George Eliot’s Middlemarch.

To be continued.

Topic: Why Read Literature? Significant Sentences (2)

One-minute review: Some of those “significant sentences” are in the three groups of sentences that follow. These significant sentences had meaning to me as interesting insights into living and life. Each of these “significant sentences,” while obviously related to preceding and following sentences in the book, could stand on it own merit as an idea. As Boswell said of one of Dr. Johnson’s works, “…almost every sentence…may furnish a subject of long meditation.” For me, “significant sentences” are ideas from literature and nonfiction that provoke reflections about life.

Significant Sentences #2: Do you recognize the following sentences and the book from which they were taken?

Pierre…the young man who did not know how to behave: First he had left a lady before she had finished speaking, and now detained another who was wishing to get away from him. ………. He spoke with such self-confidence that no one could be sure whether his remark was very witty or very stupid. ………. Don’t marry until you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of doing, and until you cease to love the woman of your choice and see her plainly, as she really is; or else you will be making a cruel and irreparable mistake. ………. I shall live to learn that in this world one can expect no reward.

He gazed at the snow flakes fluttering above the fire and thought of winter at home…the warm bright house, his soft fur coat, the swiftly-gliding sledge, his healthy body and all the love and affection of his family. ………. Endowed with the rare art of being able to hit on exactly the right moment for making use of people. ………. He described the…affair exactly as men who have taken part in battles always do describe them—that is, as they would like them to have been, as they heard them described by others, and as sounds well, but not in the least as they really had been. ………. From general to private, every man was conscious of his own insignificance, aware that he was but a grain of sand in that ocean of humanity, and yet at the same time had a sense of power as part of that vast whole.

It was obvious that the affair that had begun so lightly could not now be averted in any way but was bound to run its course to the very end, irrespective of the will of men. ………. One dies and either finds out about everything or ceases asking. ………. Just as in a dream everything may be unreal, incoherent, and contradictory except the feeling behind the dream. ………. The herd goes in that direction because the animal in front leads it there and the collective will of all the other cattle is vested in that leader.

Did you recognize the book from which these significant sentences were taken?

Next: More examples of significant sentences.

Topic: Why Read Literature? Significant Sentences (1)

One-minute review: Some of those “significant sentences” are in the three groups of sentences that follow. These significant sentences had meaning to me as interesting insights into living and life. Each of these “significant sentences,” while obviously related to preceding and following sentences in the book, could stand on it own merit as an idea. As Boswell said of one of Dr. Johnson’s works, “…almost every sentence…may furnish a subject of long meditation.” For me, “significant sentences” are ideas from literature and nonfiction that provoke reflections about life.

Significant Sentences #1: Do you recognize the following sentences and the book from which they were taken?

I a man of thought—the bookworm of great libraries—a man already in decay, having given my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge—what had I to do with youth and beauty like thine own! ………. Misshapen from my birth-hour, how could I delude myself with the idea that intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl’s fantasy! ………. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts.

A bodily disease, which we look upon as whole and entire within itself, may, after all, be but a symptom of some ailment in the spiritual part. ………. Calm, gentle, passionless as he appeared, there was yet, we fear, a quiet depth of malice, hitherto latent, but active now, in this unfortunate old man which led him to imagine a more intimate revenge than any mortal had ever wreaked upon an enemy. ………. He longed to speak out, from his own pulpit, at the full height of his voice and tell the people what he was. ………. I, your pastor, whom you so reverence and trust, am utterly a pollution and a lie.

She had climbed her way…to a higher point [while] the old man, on the other hand, had brought himself nearer to her level, or perhaps below it, by the revenge he had stooped for. ………. There is no path to guide us out of this dismal maze. ………. By the first step awry, thou didst plant the germ of evil; but, since that moment, it has all been a dark necessity. ………. She wanted [needed]—what some people want [need] throughout life—a grief that should deeply touch her, and thus humanize and make her capable of sympathy. ………. People brought all their sorrows and perplexities, and besought her counsel, as one who had herself gone through a mighty trouble.

Did you recognize the book from which these significant sentences were taken?

Next: More examples of significant sentences.

Topic: Why Read Literature?

10-second review: Insights into life. To realize life while living it. Significant sentences.

Title: “Why Read Literature?” Teaching English, How To…. RayS. Xlibris. 2004. p. 380.

Why should people spend time reading literature when they have so many other activities to engage in—work, family, house remodeling, newspapers, magazines, TV, DVD’s, Blu-ray, videotapes, CD recordings, I-pods, radio, the Internet, computer games, cell phones, e-mail, twittering, etc.? One reason that I read literature is to gain insights into life. In fact, I have collected over the years some “significant sentences” from the literature and nonfiction I have read to which I return to reflect again on ideas that I thought were insightful. Recording significant sentences is one consequence of my view about the purpose and usefulness for reading literature—to realize life while living it.

Next: Some examples of significant sentences. RayS.