Ah, pedagogy. I’ve changed the way I ask a standard question in class, for the better, I think.
Old version: What in the poem (or story, or text) makes you think that? What in the poem shows you that?
New version: What in the poem makes us think that? What in the poem shows us that?
The old version puts all the weight on the shoulders of one student and can be misheard as a challenge: where did you ever get that idea? The new version suggests that whatever the student has said makes sense, that other readers would think so too, and that evidence is indeed there in the text. Getting students to argue from the text is a more difficult proposition than you might imagine, so I’m always asking for evidence, even if it’s to support what appears to be obvious. Close, and closer, reading.
Thursday, October 20, 2011
You and us
At Zuccotti Park (4)
Our friends Jim and Luanne Koper went to Zuccotti Park on Saturday and are sharing their photographs of the day. Here’s another.
It’s an interesting time to be teaching John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which I’ll be doing in a couple of weeks. “We’re the people that live,” says Ma Joad. “Why, we’re the people — we go on.”
More photographs from Zuccotti Park
1, 2, and 3
Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Proust, Barthes, involuntary memory
Henriette Barthes died on October 25, 1979. One day later, her son Roland began a “mourning diary,” making notes on quarter-sized pieces of typing paper. Here is a note recording a moment of what Marcel Proust called involuntary memory:
May 17, 1978The New Yorker has four of Barthes’s notes online, no subscription required.
Last night, a stupid, gross film, One Two Two. It was set in the period of the Stavisky scandal, which I lived through. On the whole, it brought nothing back. But all of a sudden, one detail of the décor overwhelmed me: nothing but a lamp with a pleated shade and a dangling switch. Maman made such things — around the time she was making batik. All of her leaped before my eyes.
Roland Barthes, Mourning Diary: October 26, 1977–September 15, 1979. Trans. Richard Howard (New York: Hill and Wang, 2010).
[A footnote by Nathalie Léger identifies the film as 122, rue de Provence (dir. Christian Gion, 1978). Wikipedia explains the Stavisky scandal. Proust, as you might imagine, makes a number of appearances in Barthes’s notes.]
At Zuccotti Park (3)
Our friends Jim and Luanne Koper went to Zuccotti Park on Saturday and are sharing their photographs of the day. Such an expressive face on this man.
Related posts
At Zuccotti Park (1)
At Zuccotti Park (2)
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Orange Cain tax
“We are replacing the current tax code with oranges": Herman Cain, in tonight's debate.
[What?]
“[M]yself am hell”
An Onion headline, no article attached:
Smooth Jazz Musician Forced To ListenIf there’s a hell, smooth jazz is its soundtrack.
To His Own Song Over And Over While
On Hold With Time Warner Cable
[“Which way I fly is hell; myself am hell”: John Milton, Paradise Lost.]
Bad! Yahoo! Mail!
For many years I’ve used a Yahoo! Mail account for blog-related correspondence. But no more. Lately there are problems: messages that won’t open (widely reported) and a redesign that keeps the mobile interface from automatically going to the Inbox (which is, after all, what you want to see when you check the mail). Instead Yahoo! is pushing bits of news, sports, weather, and what’s “Trending Now”:
Worst of all: when I checked my Sent mail the other day to see when I requested a review-copy of a recently published book (opportunities to make such requests are a nice extra of keeping a blog), I discovered that Yahoo! Mail had turned my words into gibberish. My message began, “I’m writing to request a review copy.” But it came out like so:
Similar errors ran through the rest: blog turned into `b,og, from into `fpom. Yikes: my `credibikity was breaking into little pieces. The stranger part: Yahoo! Mail’s Preview still shows my e-mail error-free, just as I wrote it.¹ In Preview, the message begins,
It’s only in the sent message — where it counts — that everything’s a mess. I sent the publisher a second e-mail explaining what happened. No reply yet. No reply from Yahoo! either, to whom I reported the problem. In retaliation, I’ve created a Gmail account for blog-related matters: the address is in the sidebar if you need it.
¹ In other words, I don’t type when drunk. But also: I don’t get drunk. And also: I’m not joking. The gibberish is real, and embarrassing.
A related post
Word of the day: non-trending
At Zuccotti Park (2)
Our friends Jim and Luanne Koper went to Zuccotti Park on Saturday and are sharing their photographs of the day. Here’s another.
A related post
At Zuccotti Park (1)
Monday, October 17, 2011
“My children were raised”
My children were raised, you know they suddenly riseI am happy to learn that the verb raised in this, one of my favorite songs, is okay by Bryan Garner. From Garner’s Usage Tip of the Day, on raise and rear:
They started slow long ago, head to toe
Healthy, wise, and wise
From “Heroes and Villains” (music by Brian Wilson, words by Van Dyke Parks)
The old rule, still sometimes observed, is that crops and livestock are “raised” and children are “reared.” But today the phrase “born and raised” is about eight times as common in print as “born and reared.” And “raise” is now standard as a synonym for “rear” — e.g.: “My mother raised me to be polite.” Mary Newton Brudner, The Grammar Lady 57 (2000). Indeed, “born and reared” is likely to sound affected in American English.Bryan Garner, author of Garner’s Modern American Usage (Oxford University Press, 2009), offers a free Usage Tip of the Day. You can sign up at LawProse.org. Orange Crate Art is a Garner-friendly (and VDP-friendly) site.
My favorite Parks interpretation of “Heroes and Villains” comes from a 2010 NPR appearance. The introduction to the song starts at 26:57: Van Dyke Parks and Clare and the Reasons at the World Café.
At Zuccotti Park (1)
Our friends Jim and Luanne Koper went to Zuccotti Park on Saturday and are sharing their photographs of the day. Here’s one (not of Jim and Luanne). Thanks, guys.
On a related note: Elaine and I just watched Inside Job (dir. Charles Ferguson, 2010). Want to get angry, or angrier? Watch it. Most revealing to me were the interviews with three academics: John Campbell, R. Glenn Hubbard, Frederic Mishkin. Talk about arrogant.
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