Comments on: Read Like a Writer, Not a Literature Professor

By: Douglas

Douglas — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 07:13:04 +0000

Lisa:
Thank you! As an older student trying to achieve a meaningful degree, one that trains my writing skills, I have been railing for several years about this. The professors at the local university want to dictate their syllabi, complimented by their “subjective-objective” interpretation of an authors work. No clue as to how to derive insight, philosophical or historical references are given, and students sit quietly and cynically, because they know … NO ONE WANTS TO HEAR THEIR VOICE OR CARES OF THEIR PASSION REGARDING THE WRITING! Success is really about learning a template to produce derriere kissing regurgitations, which kill insight and creative inspiration of the works! It is about working hard to process the essays and papers, the latter often giving more latitude for the student’s view via their thesis. My ambition is to write and become infused by a given canon of classic authors, and genres, as a basic reference as a baseline of skills and knowledge. But by fear of producing grades, and requirements that are about training to be a literary critic, it is a losing battle! I mean where the hell is the passion, the “classroom dialogue” the allowed mistakes, shared epiphanies, students sitting in circles as a “conservatory of creativity”? And, what about the training in independent thinking, verbal expressions and cooperative debate to train critical thinking? No original writing is allowed, because we are desperately trying to “paint within the lines”. If I speak of literature I have read out of class, I assure you the experience boosted my esteem, stirred intrigue, allowed an open and FREE mind to gather the epiphanies of the author thru osmosis, and I can substantiate the validity of my knowledge of the work in later conversations with the “educated”. I hardly remember the works I am “forced” to “process” in a literature class. Kurt Vonnegat (sp) addresses this on a Charlie Rose interview… “why don’t many great writers come out of literature departments?”… the answer is they are robotic technicians with no inner hunger for the love of literature, and if that is in them it is severely squelched by the system of study. If you have any suggestions a s to how to navigate through an English degree and remain inspired, become a better writer, and authentically educated, my plea is for your expansion on “reading like a writer”, and he employment of this in the study of literature in pursuing an English degree. If not, perhaps I’ll go to film school, read “freely” on my own, and tell my own stories, rather than wear the attitude of the literate simply because I’m enrolled in what appears to be higher intellectual study, but produces only a critic. Thank you and I would be grateful for your further insights. ~ Douglas

By: Stephen Carter

Stephen Carter — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 15:02:54 +0000

Robin,

I’m totally with you about testing work in the cleansing fire of reading it aloud to kids. I read a book each day to a group of 3rd and 4th grade boys for a few months and quickly found out which authors had the chops. Dan Gutman emerged gloriously as did Eion Colfer. Jon Scieszka did well too. The best read-aloud I came across, though, was The Giggler Treatment. It practically read itself.

By: Robin

Robin — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 22:52:10 +0000

One of the things I realized while doing grad work (library science) is story time is the great weeder. If you writing doesn’t sound good out loud it needs help. Especially today with the popularity in audio books.

PS it isn’t just English that’s lacking in HS…*sigh* don’t get me started about the status quo of science or math education approaches.

By: Irreantum Staff

Irreantum Staff — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:32:36 +0000

Hm, I guess I didn’t log on as me, so for the record, the above post (and this one) is written by that Downing woman who submitted the post. But if you were too dim to figure that out, you probably aren’t reading this blog in the first place.

By: Irreantum Staff

Irreantum Staff — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 15:30:57 +0000

Angela’s experience w. students who come into her classroom having been taught that what matters is what they liked or didn’t like is very different from my experience with students and from my teenagers experience in public school. Perhaps that’s a regional variance. But for my kids–and this was my experience–it never mattered what the reader felt, but what the writer intended. So perhaps I’m beginning at a different point than Angela.

I’m not so interested in reader response theory, though some of it has merit IMO. I know as a writer, I’m entirely focused on the response of the reader, an idea that reader response doesn’t seem to acknowledge. But I’ll engage that thought in more depth later.

And no, I haven’t read the book. I’ll pick it up and see if she’s right.

Stephen, you put it well when you say schools raise consumers, not creators. Whats worse, so many creative writing classes are not taught by creators, much less by successful creators.

I did get to the point where I wanted to teach the lit course because I realized my approach would likely seem fresh to the students. Its good to hear your students responded well. But I also knew it wouldn’t prepare them for the next teacher down the road who wouldn’t likely get where I (or they) were coming from. Still, since it was sophomore lit, I would have probably been their last english teacher…

But you know, when I interviewed at a job fair for a public school position, I said I would use this novel approach. The teacher I spoke to who was screening applicants did not react favorably, it seemed to me, to the idea. I didn’t get a second interview. But maybe she was just jealous of my blue eyes and gorgeous figure.

By: Stephen Carter

Stephen Carter — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:51:10 +0000

Love this post, Lisa.

The principal at my wife’s school came from 13 years of teaching high school English. When he found out my wife an I were writers, he started talking about this novel he wanted to write but could never get off the ground. So I started giving him little tutorials on writing and story structure.

As we progressed, he admitted that he had zero knowledge of these concepts. His English degree and all the years he taught gave him no tools to actually write. What he could do was read and interpret.

I got the same reaction during the year I taught high school. I started with the very basics of storytelling, and never once heard a student say, “Hey, we covered this in 4th grade,” or something.

Schools raise consumers, not creators.

By: Angela Hallstrom

Angela Hallstrom — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:08:06 +0000

Interesting, Lisa. Have you read _Reading Like a Writer_ by Francine Prose? Really interesting book.

Here’s the way I approach reading like a writer with my students: I have to try to deprogram them from the “reader response” type of literary criticism they’ve learned in lit classes. (Very few students–even English majors–regularly apply other types of literary criticism to a text.) They’re used to talking about what they personally liked or didn’t like about a story or a character, how a particular plot point made them feel, what it reminded them of in their own lives, etc.

What I try to do is to help them to look at the choices the writer has made and ask themselves “why.” Why did the writer choose to begin the story here? Why did the writer choose this particular point of view? This particular word? Stuff like that.

I suppose this method of teaching is still “teaching backward”–but it’s teaching backward while using a writer’s eyes instead of a literary theorist’s eyes.