Category: Art

Writers’ rules for writing

The Guardian newspaper interviewed authors for their rules for writing fiction. The lists are quite interesting, and we try to instill many of the rules in our language curriculum:

Read it aloud to yourself because that’s the only way to be sure the rhythms of the sentences are OK (prose rhythms are too complex and subtle to be thought out – they can be got right only by ear). – Diana Athill

Keep a diary. The biggest regret of my writing life is that I have never kept a journal or a diary. – Geoff Dyer

Do it every day. Make a habit of putting your observations into words and gradually this will become instinct. This is the most important rule of all … – Geoff Dyer

Cut (perhaps that should be CUT): only by having no ­inessential words can every essential word be made to count. – Diana Athill

Some are a little odd:

Take a pencil to write with on aeroplanes. Pens leak. But if the pencil breaks, you can’t sharpen it on the plane, because you can’t take knives with you. Therefore: take two pencils. Margaret Atwood

And many make you think:

Finish the day’s writing when you still want to continue. – Helen Dunmore

Have regrets. They are fuel. On the page they flare into desire. – Geoff Dyer

Only bad writers think that their work is really good. – Anne Enright

I still have not gotten through the whole list, but Graeme Wood summarizes, “the rules sound haughty and dismissive, which is about what you should expect when you ask skilled craftsmen to reduce their craft to a few simple rules.” Yet to me, looking at a few of them at a time makes for a nice space for reflection on my own writing. It’s also the sort of semi-random trivia that my students seem to like. I know they’ll take issue with some of these rules, but that in itself would be make it useful.

For this reason, I like Jeffrey Tayler’s advice (which is not on the list):

[R]emember: None of us gets out of here alive. So don’t fear risks. Rebel. Be bold, try hard, and embrace adversity; let both success and failure provide you with unique material for your writing, let them give you a life different enough to be worth writing about.

“Imagine” “War”

One of the small group assignments last week was to pick two anti-war songs and present their meaning and context. They had a choice of music ranging in time from Frederick Weatherly’s “Danny Boy” to Green Day’s “Holiday”, but they chose two Vietnam Era songs, “Imagine” and “War”.

These turned out to be inspired choices. Not the least because both had music videos that closely reflected the songs’ different approaches to conveying the same message. Lennon’s “Imagine” is peaceful, aspirational, but somewhat subversive, while Edwin Star’s “War” is militant with its rejection of conflict.

The lyrics also provided an excellent contrast in the poetic use of language to convey meaning. After showing the two music videos, the students took the songs apart, stanza by stanza, and you can read the stridency in the punctuation and use of capitals in the lyrics of “War”:

WAR! good God y’all huh
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing…say it say it SAY IT!
WAR!…uh huh yeah huh!
What is it good for?
Absolutely nothing…listen to me

We had a great discussion. I found this to be an excellent assignment that merged the poetry we’ve been studying in Language Arts with the history and peace education of Social World.


John Lennon – Imagine
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A reason to draw

MILTON GLASER DRAWS & LECTURES from C. Coy on Vimeo.

Why do we use our hands? Milton Glaser (above) uses his to think, and he cites Frank Wilson who argues that the hand and the brain are so connected as to be a single almost indistinguishable system. In fact, Wilson extrapolates this connection to education where, he makes the arguement, “less rigid more individualized approach to education will yield a student with a unified body and mind” (according to The New Yorker, 1998).

“The hand speaks to the brain as surely as the brain speaks to the hand” – Robertson Davies in The Cornish Trilogy

Drawing is thinking for some people at least. Perhaps that’s one of the things that defines kinesthetic learners? It certainly is something to bear in mind when designing and implementing the curriculum. Teachers tend to use teaching methods that fit their learning styles, so it is important to bear in mind we will have a variety of students. It’s certainly something about which I have to keep reminding.

It is also important to remember that all students benefit from experiences with different modes of learning. Students, especially adolescents whose brains are rapidly developing new neural pathways and pruning others, need to experience variety, because once we are set in our ways, it becomes a lot harder to learn new tricks.

This is where preparing the environment becomes so important. We want student to have choices, but we want them to try new things, and sometimes these two objectives conflict. The video above does make a persuasive argument to me about why we should draw and practice drawing. Perhaps it will do the same for our kids.

The difference between poetry and prose

Words exist that can, when used by a poet, achieve a dim monochrome of the body’s love, but beyond that they fail miserably. – John Wyndham, The Crysalids

Gustave Dore's illustration of the Ancient Mariner (from Wikimedia Commons)

Going into poetry next cycle I’m having some mixed feelings. I like reading poetry, I love hearing poetry, especially when it has something to say. But I can’t write it worth a lick. I have a lot more practice writing prose, and, well, you can judge how well I can do that.

I’ve always wanted to be able to write poetry. I’ve always liked the John Wyndham quote cited above. Poetry can be expressive in a way that prose can’t. Yet prose can tell a story in ways that poetry cannot. There is, of course, a long history of story poems. The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner was a constant companion when I was bicycling solo around Lake Superior.

At any rate, Brian Beglin has a wonderful review of a novel written by a poet (Margo Berdeshevsky) (found via the Daily Dish). Belgin writes that often the combination does not quite mesh, and in working through why not he comes to the conclusion that poetic phrase do not work in prose because:

When poets write fiction, it can sometimes read like a transfer student trying to navigate the unfamiliar hallways of a new school. Sometimes this works to brilliant effect, as the poet can put a fresh shine on the fiction writer’s familiar tools. In Simon Van Booy’s The Secret Lives of People in Love, the sentences feel brisk, bright, exact, like blocks of ice chiseled into smooth, brimming faces. Conversely, Berdeshevsky’s sentences seem to ache for line breaks, for the leaps and turns vital to a poem but often detrimental to fiction: “There’s a noise she is not waiting for. Scratching like—a light knocking—and again a scratching, as of unsheathed nails on her door.” Craft-wise, these bursts of language are fascinating; yet they have the net effect of poetry: they stop time with their beauty. They can bring a story—which relies on forward momentum, on cause and effect—to a halt.

Not having read the books he references I can’t opine on if he’s right or wrong, however, it is a beautiful distinction he makes: poetic sentences stop time with their beauty, but you don’t want to stop anything when you’re telling a story.

Evil, mad, scientist!

Why have I not found this site before, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. A place where people will put serious thought, rigorous design and atrocious single-mindedness to create, well I’m not sure I can call it anything other than, “very interesting” projects. Applications of robotics that would make Asimov cry (probably with joy at human ingenuity, probably).

They carefully detail how to create such wonderful projects as:

And many more interesting and eclectic projects for an interesting middle school.

Clouds on Mars

Clouds on Mars seen from the Mars Pathfinder

Discover Magazine blogger Phil Plait has a great post showing clouds formed by air rising over the volcanic mountains on Mars (orographic clouds). The simple animation is fascinating to see, but what’s even more interesting is how they were made. The images were taken by Emil Kraaikamp who uses a telescope in what appears to be his backyard. Each image in the series that makes up the animation is a composite from images taken with red, blue and green filters. Plait has a very good explanation of the process:

I love this, because it shows how using filters tells you a lot about what you’re seeing. Note that in the red Mars is fairly smooth, with some dark spots. The red dust covers the planet, so it smooths out features (though the ice caps are obvious). In the green you’re just starting to see a hint of clouds, and then in the blue the clouds pop right out.

Combine them, and you have Mars. Another world, seen through what most people would consider a small telescope here on Earth.

Photography is a wonderful medium for combining science and art as you manage the exposure to create interesting effects. If you understand a little about how cameras work, the page on the equipment used to take the pictures is quite fascinating.