The (Lucy Calkins) empire strikes back

From The Atlantic : “How Lucy Calkins Became the Face of America’s Reading Crisis,” in which Helen Lewis wonders how Calkins can reclaim her good name. A recent e-mail from the magazine refers to Calkins as “the scapegoat” for the reading crisis.

I see so much self-mystification and evasion of fact in Calkins’s response to her fall from favor. Just one example: Emily Hanford, who produced the podcast series Sold a Story: How Teaching Kids to Read Went So Wrong, noted a passage in Calkins’s The Art of Teaching Writing (1994) that assumes a world of privilege:

They [student writers] will ask about the monogram letters on their bath towels and the words on their sweatshirts.

Now Lewis reports that Calkins had a “financially comfortable but psychologically tough” childhood:

That is why, Calkins told me, “nothing that Emily Hanford has said grates on me more than the damn monogrammed towels.” But she knows that the charge of being privileged and out of touch has stuck.

Privileged? Well, yes. Affluence and parental cruelty can of course go together. (Lewis notes that Calkins’s parents were both doctors.) And who was it who mentioned monogrammed towels to begin with? Not Emily Hanford.

If you’d like to read more of my thoughts about the crisis in reading, this post would be the one to read: To: Calkins, Fountas, and Pinnell, with the text of an e-mail that I wrote to Calkins and two other prominient promulgators of “balanced literacy” and guessing at words — I mean “hypothesizing.”

Helen Lewis’s article makes really strange reading coming after a recent Atlantic article by Rose Horowitch, “The Elite College Students Who Can’t Read Books.”

Related posts
All OCA Lucy Calkins posts and Sold a Story posts

On the 166

We walked down the hill to wait for the 166 bus to the Port Authority, but the bus stop had been removed, so we had to walk several blocks down the avenue to another stop. The bus showed up and we asked for two round-trip tickets to New York.

That’s standard procedure, or used to be: you would get a long printed receipt, give the first half to the driver at the end of the ride, and give the other half to the driver when you boarded a bus back to New Jersey. But this driver looked at us as if we were making an unusual request.

The bus had very few seats — it looked as if many had been removed. Some of the remaining seats were single seats facing the center aisle; others were facing front in twos, with so little space to sit that trying to get into a seat would be like trying to squeeze into a chair that’s pushed in under a table.

I thought this dream was about the passing of time: you can’t go home again, as everything has changed. Elaine thinks I’m already dreaming about deportations.

Related reading
All OCA dream posts (Pinboard)

[“Only fools and children talk about their dreams”: Dr. Edward Jeffreys (Robert Douglas), in Thunder on the Hill (dir. Douglas Sirk, 1951).

Domestic comedy

“Matt Gaetz is going to be the attorney general!”

Related reading
All OCA domestic comedy posts (Pinboard) posts

[He may not become attorney general. Still, reality is trumping satire daily.]

Mystery actor

[Click for a larger view.]

Leave your guesses in the comments. I’ll be on and off one device or another this morning and will drop a hint when I can if one is needed.

*

Here’s a hint: Many moviegoers would have first seen him in a refreshment room.

Another hint: Many moviegoers would recognize him as a military policeman fond of pulp fiction.

I’ll give the name at 4:00 Central if no one’s gotten it.


*

Oh well. The answer’s in the comments. And in the refreshment room, the sugar is in the spoon.

More mystery actors (Collect them all!)
? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ? : ?

“Give me the peaceful train”

From The Palm Beach Story (1942), written and directed by Preston Sturges. J.D. Hackensacker III (Rudy Vallee) and Gerry Jeffers (Claudette Colbert) are aboard J.D.’s yacht. A steward has a question: “Will you dine on deck, Mr. Hackensacker, or in the saloon?”

J.D. to Gerry:

“We can have it on deck if you like, but it blows everything all over the place. There are a lot of inconveniences to yachting that people don’t know anything about. Give me the peaceful train.”

[Saloon : “the living area on a yacht” (Merriam-Webster).]

Old heads

Roy Haynes, drummer (1925-2024).

Lou Donaldson, alto saxophonist (1926–2024).

Marshall Allen, alto saxophonist and leader of the Sun Ra Arkestra, turned 100 earlier this year.

Warren and Apple Intelligence

Adam Engst excoriates Apple for its new Apple Intelligence ads, and rightly so. One is about business writing:

In the first ad, Apple Intelligence enables a goof-off who wastes time and annoys his colleagues to surprise his boss with an unexpectedly well-written email. It’s not clear that the boss is impressed; he just can’t believe the guy would have written a professional message.

Is the message that Apple Intelligence is aimed at the perpetually lazy? Where’s the positive ad with a dyslexic child using Writing Tools to proofread a school essay or a businessperson using it to understand a complex report dumped on them minutes before a meeting?

What Adam doesn’t comment on is the writing itself. Here’s the before message:

Hey J,

Been thinking, this project might need a bit of zhuhzing. But you're the big enchilada.

Holler back,
Warren

I’ve omitted the flexed arms that frame Warren’s name — I cannot get that solid grey emoji on my Mac.

Warren has five Apple Intelligence options to choose from: Professional, Rewrite, Friendly, Proofread, and Concise (odd sequence there, Apple). He chooses Professional. Here’s the after message:

Hey J,

Upon further consideration, I believe this project may require some refinement. However, you are the most capable individual to undertake this task.

Please let me know your thoughts.

Best regards,
Warren

“Write smarter,” sez the ad. But is this revised e-mail an example of smart writing? I don’t think so. The language here is stilted and ponderous in the extreme: upon further consideration, may require, the introductory however, individual, undertake. And it’s all addressed to a boss, suggesting that the boss do the work. The smarter response to a boss might be to say “On it” — or to explain that you’re swamped and wonder whether someone else (who’s not the boss) might take on the task.

But wait, there’s more: Warren’s e-mail bears the (dumb) subject line “Project Stuff” (unchanged in the revision). There’s no “Re:” — it doesn’t appear that Warren is replying to an e-mail asking that he take on a new task, though he could be replying to a spoken request. But look again at the original e-mail: Warren was suggesting the need for further work on a project while acknowledging that the decision rests with the big enchilada. Warren was having second thoughts. Apple Intelligence appears not to have understood his words.

What might real human intelligence look like here? Maybe something like this:

Hi J,

I think that this project still needs improvement, and I’d be happy to talk about it with you. But I know that’s your decision to make. Let me know what you think,

Warren

The scary question: is the “Upon further consideration” e-mail an example of what Apple thinks good writing looks like, or is it an example of what someone at Apple thinks its customers think good writing looks like? I’m not sure which answer is scarier.

You can see the ad (and another one) at Adam Engst’s TidBITS post.

A related post
ChatGPT e-mails a professor

Background Sounds bug zapped?

The release notes for macOS Sequoia 15.1 make no mention of it, but according to a Reddit user, the update fixes the Background Sounds bug. It sure sounds like it.

Related posts
Noisy macOS, noisy iOS : ColorNoise

Hi and Lois watch

[Hi and Lois, November 11, 2024. Click for a larger view.]

“Ug! My back hurts this morning”: I don’t get it. Just yesterday, Hi was capable of complete exclamations: “Unhh!” “Arrgh!” And a complete grawlix. If you’re going to talk like a caveman this morning, Hi, you'll need to do better than this. Maybe: “Ug. Bak.”

Seeing ug for ugh reminds me of seeing pros for prose in student writing. What a difference one letter makes. Ugh.

Related reading
All OCA Hi and Lois posts (Pinboard)

Tips for reading The Power Broker

Elaine and I began reading Robert Caro’s The Power Broker (1974) a couple of weeks ago. It’s a daunting book. I don’t mind long — not at all — but The Power Broker isn’t Joyce or Proust. I was ambivalent about devoting so much time and energy to the life of Robert Moses. But Elaine already had a copy and had made a start. I bought a copy on impulse in New Jersey. Elaine was happy to go back to page one, and here we are, with the Four Seasons Reading Club (our household’s two-person reading project) not having to think about what to read next for quite some time.

Two hundred-odd pages in, I can offer some suggestions to a prospective reader:

~ Decide on a set number of pages per day. We decided on fifteen and have added a bit here and there. Having a page count lets us know that we should be finishing the book in mid-to-late January.

~ Place a sturdy throw pillow on your lap to support the book. Yes, book. It seems wrong to fly in the face of fifty years’ worth of hardcovers and paperbacks by reading The Power Broker as an e-book.¹

~ Do not be tempted to lift the book from its pillow and support it with one hand, with one finger pressing into the book’s upper rear corner. Rapt in reading, you won’t realize that you’re going to end up with a weird little bruise on that finger, looking as if someone has pushed a pencil point into it. The dent will last for some time. I speak from experience.

~ Recognize that everything will develop slowly. It’s like listening to a storyteller who stops to say “But first I have to tell you about —.” You’re along for the ride, so to speak, and there are many stops to make along the way.

~ Marvel at the depth of research that’s gone into the book. As Caro says, it’s the research that makes his books take so long. He’s done his homework — as well as the homework for every kid in the school district. On every page you’ll find details, mentioned in passing, that are occasions for wonder. No spoilers here.

As you may suspect, I think The Power Broker is a great reading experience, all about the acquisition and use of power to reshape — and deform, really — the life of a city. What a time to be reading a book about reshaping and deforming things. The Power Broker is so intensely readable that I could kick myself for ever doubting.

Robert Caro, in Turn Every Page: The Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb (dir. Lizzie Gottlieb, 2022):

“I’ve always felt that if a nonfiction book is going to endure, the level of the prose in it, the narrative, the rhythm, et cetera, the setting of scenes, has to be at the same level as a great work of fiction that endures.”

We have 917 pages to go.

Related posts
Caro on facts and truth : “Is there desperation on this page?” : Longhand and a Smith-Corona _____

¹ But if circumstances make an e-book the right choice, choose the e-book.