What is "The End" of Learning to Write?

[Lori D.]

44 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I mean, sure, but I think it's best that people write essays about things they care about. 

I actually basically like Lit. Analysis, so I have no quarrel with this kind of essay, but I don't think I'd assign it to a student who found the topic deeply boring. I think you can teach those skills in a multitude of ways and there's nothing wrong with not focusing on this specific application of it. 

Well, I think this same "logic" could be applied to learning: "it's best that people learn about things they care about." Gee, my kid hates math or science. No need to learn about those subjects... 😉 Or probably a closer comparison: "My kid doesn't mind most topics in math, but really doesn't care about fractions, so it's best to just skip that math topic since my kid doesn't care about it." 😉 

I am guessing that perhaps you and the previous posters may be thinking of the kinds of assignments you were required to write as literary analysis essays, which was probably very narrow and forced. And possibly required about literature that was not enjoyable or did not connect with you. That's a shame. But that shouldn't mean that writing about literature should be pigeon-holed as not worthwhile. The thinking, logic, and analysis done for writing about Humanities fields such as Sociology, Philosophy, and History, are the very same thinking, logic, and analysis skills needed and used in writing about Literature. Why *wouldn't* you do some writing about Literature??

Refer up to @regentrude's response about the writing her family did about literature and that is much much closer to what I am talking about as literary analysis essays.

Edited October 2, 2021 by Lori D.

[Lori D.]

5 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

What's required for college writing really varies university by university. For my son's BSEE, he's had to take a freshman writing class which did include a literary analysis paper, technical writing, and a secondary technical writing class. He's also had to do a speech class.

Public school here in 8th requires the reading of 2 complete novels in a year, a variety of short stories and novel selections, and some poetry.  There is a researched paper on a non-fiction topic, some public speaking, and several slide presentations on aspects of literary analysis (theme, tone, setting, etc.) but no literary analysis paper.

The first true literary analysis paper pops up in 10th, and is repeated in 11th and 12th. If you're in AP English, or Honors English after 10th, you write a few of them a year, but it's not a crank them out every month thing. 

My boys both hate writing. Sometimes we do things we hate, but I wouldn't be dying on that mountain in 8th grade. 

Also, this^^^. 

We're talking about 1-2 analysis essays a year in high school as some of the wide variety of types of writing. 

[Not_a_Number]

37 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Well, I think this same "logic" could be applied to learning: "it's best that people learn about things they care about." Gee, my kid hates math or science. No need to learn about those subjects... 😉

Not really. Because I don't think anything else works those same skills in the same way. Whereas I think you CAN learn most literary analysis essay skills by doing other stuff.

Put it another way, I think a kid can write very few literary analysis essays and still learn solid writing skills in other ways, and then have a much easier time learning to write literary analysis essays when needed (at least if they've discussed books and thought about books before.) 

I actually LIKE literary analysis essays. I don't feel like they are narrow or forced. I already said that, frankly. But I wouldn't force them on a kid who, say, barely liked fiction at all. It just seems pointless. 

Edited October 2, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[kokotg]

13 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Not really. Because I don't think anything else works those same skills in the same way. Whereas I think you CAN learn most literary analysis essay skills by doing other stuff.

Put it another way, I think a kid can write very few literary analysis essays and still learn solid writing skills in other ways, and then have a much easier time learning to write literary analysis essays when needed (at least if they've discussed books and thought about books before.) 

I actually LIKE literary analysis essays. I don't feel like they are narrow or forced. I already said that, frankly. But I wouldn't force them on a kid who, say, barely liked fiction at all. It just seems pointless. 

I think literary analysis is something everyone thinks that just anyone can teach or do but that very few people actually do well. There's a reason AP lit has the lowest percentage of 5s of any of the exams. 

[Not_a_Number]

15 minutes ago, kokotg said:

I think literary analysis is something everyone thinks that just anyone can teach or do but that very few people actually do well. There's a reason AP lit has the lowest percentage of 5s of any of the exams. 

I don't think anyone can do literary analysis, but I'm actually a really good essay writer and was always good at it 🤷‍♀️. I think the reason most people can't do this is that most people can't write and don't have any of the prerequisite analytical skills. 

[Lori D.]

44 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Not really. Because I don't think anything else works those same skills in the same way. Whereas I think you CAN learn most literary analysis essay skills by doing other stuff.

Put it another way, I think a kid can write very few literary analysis essays and still learn solid writing skills in other ways, and then have a much easier time learning to write literary analysis essays when needed (at least if they've discussed books and thought about books before.) 

I actually LIKE literary analysis essays. I don't feel like they are narrow or forced. I already said that, frankly. But I wouldn't force them on a kid who, say, barely liked fiction at all. It just seems pointless. 

Again, I disagree completely.

12 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

...I think the reason most people can't do this is that most people can't write and don't have any of the prerequisite analytical skills. 

Agree.


Not wanting to derail the subject of the original post, I am now stepping aside on this side topic. 😄 

Edited October 2, 2021 by Lori D.

[Not_a_Number]

16 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Again, I disagree completely.

I suppose I don't know how much literary analysis @lewelma's older DS wound up doing, but I know she says he learned to write via writing proofs, and I believe it 😉 . 

Edited October 2, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[EKS]

I find it interesting that it seems odd that a kid might not ever write a literary analysis essay, but it doesn't seem odd that they may not ever write any other sort of genre specific essay.  The only reason literary analysis essays loom large is because the vast majority of high school English teachers were English majors who like to teach literary analysis.  So most people's understanding of "learning to write" means learning to write literary analysis essays.

That said, I'm not against literary analysis--I think it's fun and useful.  But you absolutely can learn to write without it.  And, frankly, in the world we inhabit, I'd rather folks are learning argumentation in the context of facts rather than squishy literary interpretation.

[Not_a_Number]

8 minutes ago, EKS said:

And, frankly, in the world we inhabit, I'd rather folks are learning argumentation in the context of facts rather than squishy literary interpretation.

Exactly. People have enough trouble with things that actually HAVE right and wrong answers. Arguing in contexts where there aren't any right answers takes more sophistication, not less. 

[lewelma]

I love talking about designing courses to teach kids what they need to know. Hopefully, Gil will find this conversation useful.  So, I'm mostly responding to Lori here, but also to others (it just got complicated trying to quote everyone separately).

I firmly believe that a strong background in the humanities is required for a well-educated person. And my older, very mathy son, is *very* strong in the humanities. He has read more literature than any other person he has personally met. At least 100 classics in highschool, including very long books like War and Peace and 100 Years of Solitude. He is a powerful reader and thinker, and was named a Burchard Scholar for excellence in the humanities by the time he was a sophomore in university. But he did not learn to write on a diet of literary analysis.

As mentioned, he learned to write using math proofs, which then easily converted to genres like the articles in Scientific American and the Economist. By his junior year, we realized that he needed to take the NZ national English exam to demonstrate to all the elite colleges that he was applying to that he could write. This exam is similar to the AP literature exam, where he had to write 3 literary analysis essays on 3 hours based on unfamiliar texts supplied on the day. Only 10% of students who take the exam earn an 'excellence', the equivalent of a 5 here. My son studied for 3 hours per day for TEN DAYS before the exam, and he earned an 'excellence.' That was all the literary analysis we ever did in his entire homeschooling career, he never wrote literary analysis essays before or after those 10 days. 

The reason that he could master this basic for of literary analysis so quickly was because he read so widely for hours and hours each day for more than a decade. In addition, he learned to write by writing what interested him. Motivation is incredibly important to learning. He was motivated to write math and he was motivated to write about science to a lay audience. These 2 types of writing gave him the strong foundation that all writing is based on, including literary analysis. The writing and thinking skills were completely transferable. Obviously, this goes the other way too -- that learning to write using literary analysis is transferable to other genres of writing that a student is more likely to see in their career (because very few people do literary analysis for a living). So from my point of view, the goal is to learn to write and to learn to analyze. Use whatever genre is most effective for your student. 

Edited October 3, 2021 by lewelma

[Not_a_Number]

12 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Obviously, this goes the other way too -- that learning to write using literary analysis is transferable to other genres of writing that a student is more likely to see in their career (because very few people do literary analysis for a living). So from my point of view, the goal is to learn to write and to learn to analyze. Use whatever genre is most effective for your student. 

Exactly. Thanks for saying what I was struggling to say so well. 

[thewellerman]

Hello!  I have lurked on the chat forum for years, but just today, out of frustration for my high schooler, searched for literature and writing threads.  I can't believe how timely this one is.

I have a strong math and science student, who has also read 70? books, and is at the beginning of her junior year.  She can write, and does so very often for an outside activity.  I am so confused and frustrated about how much and what she needs to write, and what an English credit is even supposed to entail.  We kicked the can down the road by just letting her read, but now we need to do some formal writing.  I sent her to do a literature approach paper the other day, and she researched how and came back in a hour with a fabulous paper.  I can't imagine making her write more of that kind of thing, when she is very clearly on a STEM track, and she can discuss and write about literature if I make her.  

I don't want to derail from Gil, but I would love a more thorough explanation of high school English for STEM kids, preferably something that I can list as "honors" on her transcript.  Should I start a new thread?  Would anyone be willing to spell it out for me?

[EKS]

1 hour ago, lewelma said:

Obviously, this goes the other way too -- that learning to write using literary analysis is transferable to other genres of writing that a student is more likely to see in their career (because very few people do literary analysis for a living).

I disagree with this.  I think it's much easier to go from arguing from actual facts to arguing about squishy literary things than the other way around.

I'm saying this as a person who was supposedly "brilliant" at literary analysis in high school (that's a quote from by 11th grade English teacher).  I then, after much mucking about, majored in biochemistry and after working in a lab for many years became a professional scientific writer.  Years later, I got a master's degree in the humanities.  After writing scientific papers, being able to make sh*t up--which, frankly, is what humanities papers are at their core--was a no brainer.  That said, the made up sh*t is interesting and worthwhile, but the process is TOTALLY DIFFERENT from what goes on in disciplines that rely on actual facts.  And that is one of the things wrong in the US today--that people are mistaking made up sh*t for actual facts and vice versa, and I am certain it comes from what has been happening in US universities for the past few (several) decades.

Edited October 3, 2021 by EKS

[lewelma]

40 minutes ago, EKS said:

I disagree with this.  I think it's much easier to go from arguing from actual facts to arguing about squishy literary things than the other way around.

Fair. I do think that no matter what genre you learn to write with, you will still have to learn the foundations of another genre to be able to write in it. It took my son 30 hours to learn what was required of literary analysis -- that the support that was needed in literary analysis was quotes, whereas it is facts in a lot of nonfiction essays. 

As for writing about 'squishy literary things', I actually think you are underselling the complexity of doing this well. My eyes were opened to how difficult literary analysis can be when my younger did a research paper on Huck Finn. The complexity was almost overwhelming and way way harder to deal with than writing a persuasive article in the Scientific American style. 

[lewelma]

1 hour ago, thewellerman said:

Hello!  I have lurked on the chat forum for years, but just today, out of frustration for my high schooler, searched for literature and writing threads.  I can't believe how timely this one is.

I have a strong math and science student, who has also read 70? books, and is at the beginning of her junior year.  She can write, and does so very often for an outside activity.  I am so confused and frustrated about how much and what she needs to write, and what an English credit is even supposed to entail.  We kicked the can down the road by just letting her read, but now we need to do some formal writing.  I sent her to do a literature approach paper the other day, and she researched how and came back in a hour with a fabulous paper.  I can't imagine making her write more of that kind of thing, when she is very clearly on a STEM track, and she can discuss and write about literature if I make her.  

I don't want to derail from Gil, but I would love a more thorough explanation of high school English for STEM kids, preferably something that I can list as "honors" on her transcript.  Should I start a new thread?  Would anyone be willing to spell it out for me?

My older boy's focus was on rhetoric, not literature. So we picked a number of genre's to mimic. For each genre we studied, we picked an essay we liked, photocopied it enlarged, cut it into paragraphs, and wrote all over it. The focus was on content, structure, and style. What content was used to support the thesis? How was it structured? How did the style used impact its persuasiveness. Then after spending 2 weeks (10 hours) on a single paper, he would write one of his own. We did this with many genres.  The two books we used were Corbett "Classical rhetoric for the modern student" and "They say, I say: moves that matter". Both of these were recommended by SWB. 

[lewelma]

If it is helpful, here are my course descriptions.  Notice my older boy did read a LOT of literature, and we discussed it a LOT. But the course descriptions show off all the rhetoric work that we did, both with the textbooks that we used and with the paper genres that he wrote. 

19th-Century American and British Literature. (1 credit)
This course covered American and British literature from the 19th century, with a focus on Gothic literature of the
Victorian period including the differing approaches to gruesome, psychological, and supernatural horror. Course
goals included familiarity with poetic and literary elements, the informal fallacies, and genres and themes. The
course also focused on how to critically analyze essays with various patterns of development including narration,
description, analogy, cause and effect, definition, and comparison essays. The course had a strong composition
component focusing on analytical and persuasive essays.
Textbook: Supernatural Horror in Literature, by Howard Lovecraft
The Art of Argument: an Introduction to the Informal Fallacies, by Aaron Larsen
Common threads: Core Readings by Method and Theme, by Ellen Repetto
Literary analysis provided by introductions to each Penguin Classic edition

Texts:

Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Dracula, by Bram Stoker
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
The Picture of Dorian Grey, by Oscar Wilde
The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James
The Count of Monte Cristo, by Alexane Dumas
Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens
Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens
Moby Dick, by Herman Melville
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
Late Victorian Gothic Tales, by various authors
Selected short stories, by Edgar Allan Poe
All short stories, by Howard Lovecraft
Selected poems, by Emily Dickinson

20th-Century American and British Literature. (Blended course: Te Kura & self-study, 1 credit)
This course covered American and British literature of the 20th Century with a focus on postmodern literature and
its literary response to historical events and previous movements such as modernism. This course also analyzed
rhetorical devices in academic writing using They Say, I Say, with a focus on how to integrate an argument within
the larger context of what others have written. This course had a strong composition component focusing on
response, expository, and research papers. The composition instruction was provided through Te Kura and satisfied
the New Zealand 11th-grade English requirement.
NCEA Level 2 exams and assessments: 14 NZ credits achieved with excellence
Textbooks: They Say, I Say: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, by Gerald Graff

The Lively Art of Writing, by Lucile Payne

Literary analysis provided by introductions to each Penguin Classic edition

Texts:

1984, by George Orwell
Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake
Catch 22, by Joseph Heller
Cat’s Cradle, by Kurt Vonnegut
The Lord of the Rings, by J. R. R. Tolkien
Cold Comfort Farm, by Stella Gibbons
Wolf Hall, by Hilary Mantel
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, by John le Carré
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
House of Leaves, by Mark Danielewski
The Luminaries, by Eleanor Catton
Solaris, by Stanislaw Lem
Science Fiction Hall of Fame, edited by Silverberg
Selected short stories, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Selected short stories, by Ernest Hemingway

Russian Literature. (Blended course: Te Kura and self-study, 1 credit)
This course covered seminal Russian literature with the goal of identifying themes, ideas, and cultural contexts.
Discussions focused on philosophical concepts such as free will, nihilism, and Freudian psychology, as well as
dealing with questions such as the nature of historical evidence and the degree to which objectivity is possible. The
course also contained a unit focused on the critical reading of classic and modern essays and the how each author
built a persuasive argument. This course had a strong composition component including expository, analytical, and
narrative essays with a focus on audience and purpose. The composition instruction was provided through Te Kura
in preparation for NCEA
Level 3 credits in 12th grade.
Textbook: The Hedgehog and the Fox, by Isaiah Berlin

The Art of Reading, by The Great Courses and Timothy Spurgin
Literary analysis provided by introductions to each Penguin Classic edition

Texts:

The Brothers Karamazov, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy
Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov
Selected short stories, by Nikolai Gogol
Selected short stories, by Anton Chekhov

World Literature – NCEA Level 3. (Blended course: Te Kura and self-study, 1 credit)
This course focused on World Literature and featured representative works from various genres and periods. It
examined how conventions and themes vary throughout the history of the novel, drama, and poetry; and how
historical, literary, and personal contexts influenced each author. The course also compared and contrasted various
productions of the same Shakespearean play to identify and appreciate different dramatic interpretations. This
course had a strong composition component including analytical and expository essays, oral presentations, and a
research paper. The composition instruction was provided through Te Kura and satisfied the New Zealand 12th
grade English requirement.
NCEA Level 3 exams and assessments: 6 NZ credits achieved with excellence

12 NZ credits in progress

Textbooks: Perrine’s Literature: Structure, Sound, and Sense, by Thomas Arp
Literary analysis provided by introductions to each Penguin Classic edition.

Texts:

Candide, by Voltaire
Faust, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Importance of Being Earnest, by Oscar Wilde
Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad
Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck
The Stranger, by Albert Camus
The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway
Slaughterhouse 5, by Kurt Vonnegut
Labyrinth, by Jorge Luis Borges
100 years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, by Italio Calvino

Film adaptations:

The Tempest, by William Shakespeare
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
12th Night, by William Shakespeare
Much Ado About Nothing, by William Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare
A Midsummer Night’s dream, by William Shakespeare
As You Like It, by William Shakespeare
Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare
Henry V, by William Shakespeare
Othello, by William Shakespeare

Edited October 3, 2021 by lewelma

[EKS]

11 minutes ago, lewelma said:

As for writing about 'squishy literary things', I actually think you are underselling the complexity of doing this well.

That is what it is at its core.  And I am someone who was really, really good at it in high school and even better at it in graduate school, so it's not like I have some sort of erroneous idea about what it is--I get that it's complex.  But there's no hard wall of reality to run up against.  That is the key difference.  It's all argument, and you create your own truth, truth that feels absolutely right to the depths of your soul.  But it isn't truth that is based in reality.

Edited October 3, 2021 by EKS

[lewelma]

3 minutes ago, EKS said:

That is what it is at its core.  And I am someone who was really, really good at it in high school and even better at it in graduate school, so it's not like I have some sort of erroneous idea about what it is--I get that it's complex.  But there's no hard wall of reality to run up against.  That is the key difference.  It's all argument, and you create your own truth, truth that feels absolutely right to the depths of your soul.  But it isn't truth that is based in reality.

Ah, well there are different kinds of knowledge. My mathy boy's black and white knowledge of maths and physics is complemented very well by his deep reading into literature and philosophy. I think these types of knowledge are complementary and make for a more whole person -- a person better to make decisions that impact the world. Science without ethics and compassion is dangerous.

Edited October 3, 2021 by lewelma

[EKS]

1 minute ago, lewelma said:

Ah, well there are different kinds of knowledge. My mathy boy's black and white knowledge of maths and physics is complemented very well by his deep reading into literature and philosophy. I think these types of knowledge are complementary and make for a more whole person. A person better to make decisions that impact the world. Science without ethics is dangerous.

Yes, there are.  But the problem comes when you think you understand what knowledge is because you've done one sort of thinking, and really that's just the tip of the iceberg.  It goes both ways, but in our world today, the idea that you create your own reality is dangerous.

[EKS]

3 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Science without ethics and compassion is dangerous.

Of course.

[EKS]

To be fair, it's not just in literary analysis where truth is conjured; it is in all of the humanities.

Edited October 3, 2021 by EKS

[lewelma]

21 minutes ago, EKS said:

Yes, there are.  But the problem comes when you think you understand what knowledge is because you've done one sort of thinking, and really that's just the tip of the iceberg.  It goes both ways, but in our world today, the idea that you create your own reality is dangerous.

agreed

[lewelma]

45 minutes ago, EKS said:

To be fair, it's not just in literary analysis where truth is conjured; it is in all of the humanities.

I'm not sure I agree with this. People have opinions, and there is no truth when there are many opinions.  You need to be able to argue your opinion even if it is not with facts.  Arguing with facts is easy, but it is also a simplistic way to view the world. My older boy is top of his class at MIT, but he couldn't hold a candle to my younger boy who can see, understand, are articulate how different world views impact opinions.

Here are two example paragraphs from a literary analysis essay that my younger wrote. The complexity is astonishing, and not something you will experience when writing science for the lay audience like my older did. I've argued above that literary analysis is not *necessary* for an English class, but I definitely think it is *sufficient*. Different strokes for different folks. Do what works for your child to make them a strong thinker and a strong writer. 

------

In the last twelve chapters, Tom Sawyer creates an overly complicated plan of escape based on his misinterpretation of romantic novels, all the while “upgrading” Jim’s prison with rats, snakes, and spiders. As a part of being a “proper” prisoner, “every time a rat bit Jim he would get up and write a little in his journal whilst the ink was fresh.” Hanson states that “the careless brutality of that phrase is almost beyond belief.” He believes that these final chapters destroy the carefully created characterization of a deeply human Jim, and replaces it with “flat, cheap type.” He considers the ending of Huck Finn to be a failure from the point of view of Twain creating a strong moral individual. Jim has lost his dignity. He is now a “sub-human creature” who “bleeds fresh ink.” I agree with Hanson that these last chapters showcase a diminished Jim. We see his minstrel caricature through his obliging acceptance of the farcical machinations of Tom. Just like the Minstrel show, these scenes use buffoonery to entertain a white audience both inside the novel where Jim’s suffering entertains Tom, and outside the novel where Tom’s machinations provide amusement to the contemporaneous readership. However, I disagree with Hanson’s conclusion that the act of degrading Jim makes the ending a “failure.” Twain uses Tom’s conduct to make a commentary on post-war racial values. Tom knows that Jim is free, and yet extends his captivity in order to have petty amusement at Jim’s expense. Like Tom, contemporaneous readers knew slavery was a defunct institution. “But like Tom, most whites did not see this as a reason for changing the habits of a lifetime and actually starting to treat black people decently.” At the end of the book, Jim, like America’s Blacks in the Reconstruction period, is free and yet still enslaved. Tom does not view Jim as human or view his suffering as worthy of note. This is exemplified by Tom saying “I bet we can find a way that’s twice as long. There ain’t no hurry….It could be strung out as much as 80 year.” Twain was remarkably prescient in his estimation of how long “self-styled Redeemers” like Tom would be willing to prolong the abasement of Blacks. Tom was “rescuing” Jim by extending his captivity. Just like American whites during Reconstruction, Tom comfortably holds conflicting notions about Blacks -- he is both a self righteous rescuer while concurrently debasing Jim. 

Conclusion
Twain portrayed Jim as a confusing mixture of both a minstrel stereotype and a deeply human character. He did this to expose white America’s ambiguity to Black humanity. By leaving Jim’s outcome in the final chapter unknown, Twain uses this allegory to showcase the uncertain future of American Blacks. Though legally emancipated, they were not truly free. As MacLeod states, “a genuine and meaningful freedom… is rooted in the practice of equality, and in the heart’s acknowledgment of common humanity.” I agree with her that through Jim, Twain contrasts freedom through emancipation with freedom through equality and acceptance. When on the river with Huck, Jim is a deeply human character who experiences the true meaning of freedom – equality. In contrast, even when emancipated by his owner Miss Watson in a self-righteous act, he literally remains in prison under guard and figuratively remains in the prison of a degraded caricature. To the reader, this sudden and unexpected emancipation feels on the surface like a happy ending, however we see that Jim is not yet free from racism and stereotyping. This ending is “a calculated and incisive dramatization of Twain’s bitterness at the self-righteous and limited gestures of commitment his society had made towards the true meaning of black liberation.” The treatment of Jim symbolizes this lack of effort to give Blacks equality and acceptance in the post war era. Contemporary readers see that although modern society has made efforts to improve racial discrimination: injustice and white complacency continues to this day. Readers finish The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn questioning their own prejudice and wondering if they are also guilty of propagating discrimination, intolerance, and repression of those less fortunate than themselves. 
 

Edited October 3, 2021 by lewelma

[Not_a_Number]

36 minutes ago, lewelma said:

  Arguing with facts is easy, but it is also a simplistic way to view the world. My older boy is top of his class at MIT, but he couldn't hold a candle to my younger boy who can see, understand, are articulate how different world views impact opinions.

I don't really think that facts are a "simplistic way to view the world." When facts are relevant, they are the only way to view the world. It's just that the world is full of shades of gray, and one ought to be able to see that from that perspective as well as from the perspective of facts. 

[Lori D.]

 

24 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

... When facts are relevant, they are the only way to view the world...

Disagree. Facts provide an important part of understanding reality, but do not comprise all of what is necessary to function as a complex, thinking human being living within a society of many other complex, thinking human beings.

2 hours ago, EKS said:

That is what it is at its core.  And I am someone who was really, really good at it in high school and even better at it in graduate school, so it's not like I have some sort of erroneous idea about what it is--I get that it's complex.  But there's no hard wall of reality to run up against.  That is the key difference.  It's all argument, and you create your own truth, truth that feels absolutely right to the depths of your soul.  But it isn't truth that is based in reality.

Seriously? Kai, I have a lot of respect for your homeschooling, and for your strong academics, but you're missing a huge piece of reality if you think that the only thing that is relevant is "facts".

Truth, justice, beauty, morality/ethics... those are all part of reality and part of what we base our daily life and choices on. And those are not "fact-based". Science and math, nonfiction and facts... those only take you so far. Humanities, which literature is a part of and gives voice to, provides the critical context for facts, and for comprehending beyond the limited scope of the scientific empirical.

Literature and literary analysis is only "squishy" or is "made up to create your own truth" if you already ARE a relativist. Which many people may say that is their philosophy, but in daily life, no one lives like that because it is chaos.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Lori D.

[lewelma]

Just now, Not_a_Number said:

I don't really think that facts are a "simplistic way to view the world." When facts are relevant, they are the only way to view the world. It's just that the world is full of shades of gray, and one ought to be able to see that from that perspective as well as from the perspective of facts. 

Well, I'm thinking of my younger boy's work on geography, and if you wrote a paper with just facts, it would be a simplistic way to view the world, because the decisions that have to be made are based on opinions of what has more value -- culture, environment, economics, etc. And there is no right answer. You have to deal with grey. However, studying both ways of thinking is the ideal. 

[Not_a_Number]

49 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Disagree. Facts provide an important part of understanding reality, but do not comprise all of what is necessary to function as a complex, thinking human being living within a society of many other complex, thinking human beings.

Hence “when facts are relevant.” 

[Not_a_Number]

7 minutes ago, lewelma said:

Well, I'm thinking of my younger boy's work on geography, and if you wrote a paper with just facts, it would be a simplistic way to view the world, because the decisions that have to be made are based on opinions of what has more value -- culture, environment, economics, etc. And there is no right answer. You have to deal with grey. However, studying both ways of thinking is the ideal. 

But who’s talking about “just facts”? When facts are the right thing, there’s no way around them. But lots of the time, there ARE no facts or they are ambiguous.

[Not_a_Number]

50 minutes ago, Lori D. said:

Truth, justice, beauty, morality/ethics... those are all part of reality and part of what we base our daily life and choices on. And those are not "fact-based".

Truth is fact-based, lol. Otherwise it’s not truth.

[lewelma]

Just now, Not_a_Number said:

But who’s talking about “just facts”? When facts are the right thing, there’s no way around them. But lots of the time, there ARE no facts or they are ambiguous.

LOL. I'm not sure what we are arguing about. My older learned to write with a more black and white style based on facts. My younger learned to write with a more shades of grey style, more based in opinion. Both are very effective writers. Both focused on writing that would be most useful to them in their careers. 

[lewelma]

3 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

But who’s talking about “just facts”? When facts are the right thing, there’s no way around them. But lots of the time, there ARE no facts or they are ambiguous.

Or there are facts that are interpreted through different values and perspectives. This is geography. 

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, lewelma said:

LOL. I'm not sure what we are arguing about. My older learned to write with a more black and white style based on facts. My younger learned to write with a more shades of grey style, more based in opinion. Both are very effective writers. Both focused on writing that would be most useful to them in their careers. 

I guess that I think it’s possible to be fluent at both and that they aren’t at odds.

Edited October 3, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Not_a_Number]

I suppose that, like Kai, I’ve done a fair amount of both kinds of writing and always dislike them being set against each other.

[lewelma]

14 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I suppose that, like Kai, I’ve done a fair amount of both kinds of writing and always dislike them being set against each other.

Oh dear, please don't interpret anything I have said as an either/or. My focus has been on giving Gil a sense that literary analysis is one way of many to teach a child to write. It is not required, and it is not optimal for some kids. I have obviously run programs for my 2 children that are pretty dramatically different. My point is just that you can adapt a program to the needs and wants of your child. You are NOT locked in to some preconceived notion of what is an 'English' class. 

But I will also say that in my youthful arrogance, that I thought that BA degrees were for the less academically able. But the experience I have had with high level literary analysis with my younger has shown me that I was just plain ignorant. The humanities deal with complex topics that are incredibly difficult to manage to write persuasively. I was humbled by the work that I did last year with my younger boy. 

[thewellerman]

8 hours ago, lewelma said:

My older boy's focus was on rhetoric, not literature. So we picked a number of genre's to mimic. For each genre we studied, we picked an essay we liked, photocopied it enlarged, cut it into paragraphs, and wrote all over it. The focus was on content, structure, and style. What content was used to support the thesis? How was it structured? How did the style used impact its persuasiveness. Then after spending 2 weeks (10 hours) on a single paper, he would write one of his own. We did this with many genres.  The two books we used were Corbett "Classical rhetoric for the modern student" and "They say, I say: moves that matter". Both of these were recommended by SWB. 

Thank you so much for this and your post with the course descriptions.  Very, very helpful.  

 

[EKS]

10 hours ago, lewelma said:

I'm not sure I agree with this. People have opinions, and there is no truth when there are many opinions.

That is why I say truth is conjured.  You argue that it is true, and after a while it becomes truth in your mind.  It's an odd experience.

9 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Truth, justice, beauty, morality/ethics... those are all part of reality and part of what we base our daily life and choices on. And those are not "fact-based". Science and math, nonfiction and facts... those only take you so far. Humanities, which literature is a part of and gives voice to, provides the critical context for facts, and for comprehending beyond the limited scope of the scientific empirical.

I completely agree with this, thought I think that science itself can also provide context for facts.

9 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Literature and literary analysis is only "squishy" or is "made up to create your own truth" if you already ARE a relativist. Which many people may say that is their philosophy, but in daily life, no one lives like that because it is chaos.

I assume you've written quite a few literary analysis papers.  Haven't you ever had the experience where you come up with whatever your argument is going to be and in the course of writing the paper, whatever it is crystalizes in your mind and becomes the truth about the thing?  And there is nothing outside yourself that will push back against this truth because the reality of the text is not "out there" the way the reality of the physical world is "out there," but rather, the reality of the text is inside your mind.  

I do think that literary analysis, and other analysis in the humanities, can be tremendously interesting and rewarding and important to us as human beings.  But if that is the only hard core reasoning you ever do, and your experience with such reasoning is that truth can be conjured and reign unopposed by external reality, you run the risk of viewing all hard core reasoning through this lens.

8 hours ago, lewelma said:

The humanities deal with complex topics that are incredibly difficult to manage to write persuasively.

Yes, writing well in the humanities is difficult.  I don't mean writing well enough to get an A; that is pretty easy.  I mean writing truly original, well considered, well argued, aesthetically pleasing works is difficult, and anyone who tells you differently probably isn't thinking hard enough!

[UHP]

1 hour ago, EKS said:

I don't mean writing well enough to get an A; that is pretty easy.  I mean writing truly original, well considered, well argued, aesthetically pleasing works is difficult, and anyone who tells you differently probably isn't thinking hard enough!

This is nicely put. I don't like the way writing features in modern education, maybe because of the contrast you are making. A high school kid has a few years ahead of him where "writing to get an A" will be a useful skill — all the more useful if he can do it without taking too much time. In adult life, this kind of writing is not useful.

Meanwhile, to write something truly original about literature is way beyond every high school kid I ever knew. Maybe I've known two or one who could write something well considered, well argued, and aesthetically pleasing. Outside of a literature classroom, it's good advice to "keep quiet" or at least "be brief" if you don't have something original to say. But then what advice to give kids who do spend time in literature classrooms?

[Lori D.]

Back to @Gil's second post with an add-on question (re: not having done a literary analysis essay and re-starting reading/discussing together with his DSs)...

Group reading/discussion is a super idea! That is such a great way of developing the thinking and logic skills needed for any type of argumentative writing. Just from my experience, I'd suggest waiting on writing any literary analysis essays until high school, which would give you plenty of practice for the kinds of thinking/developing support needed for an essay through discussing. And, as with any type of writing, no need to overkill once you've done a few. Just like with Science or Foreign Language or Math, once you have practiced and mastered a concept or type of structure or formula, no need to beat it to death. 😉 

In my post back on page 1, I recommend teaching a wide variety of types of writing and essays, through a lot of different types off "assignments", so lots to choose from and work on, as fits the needs of your students, and your own homeschooling goals.

I successfully taught 2 DSs (one with mild LDs) to write in our homeschooling all the way through high school, and I have been teaching Writing & Literature in a classroom for 8 years now, to a range of student ages/abilities. From that post up-thread, you can see that I did (and still do) teach the whole gamut of writing. I DO find literature readings/discussions to be extremely fruitful in helping students to develop logic and thinking skills that are critical in all types of writing. I DON'T beat the books to death with too much analysis. 😉 And, we don't write about every single work of lit.; the literary analysis essay is just one of a number of different types of argumentative essays we do each year.

Argumentative writing is about making a claim (stating an opinion, position, conclusion, or "big idea"), and then building an argument of support for that claim through a series of reasons/points, which in turn are supported by evidence (facts, examples, data, "expert opinions," case studies, anecdotes, etc.), which is then connected back to the reasons/points and the claim through commentary. Different types of argumentative essays use different types of evidence. For a literary analysis essay the evidence is specific examples from the text being discussed -- which are NOT taken out of context, nor twisted, nor only very selectively chose to fit the claim when there is more evidence in the text against the claim. 😉 But that is true of how to properly use ANY type of evidence in ANY type of argumentative writing. 😉 


I was going to comment further on the up-thread generalization about "most people's understanding of 'learning to write' means learning to write literary analysis essays" (?? what is the factual support for that claim??) -- as well as the generalization that there is an overuse of literary analysis essays to the exclusion of other types of argumentative writing by teachers because they are English majors (again: ??). Perhaps that is the case in colleges?? It's not something I see with friends who are public & private middle and high school teachers and who teach a wide range of writing assignment types. Nor is that the case for myself in teaching writing in my classes. So that claim would need some solid data and details behind it. 😉 

I also was going to comment on the odd (to me) "conjuring truth" interpretation in regards to writing literary analysis essays, but I realized that has not been my experience in either my own writing, nor in teaching writing, nor in reading students' essays. So, I can't comment there.

But mostly, I really don't want to keep fueling that "bunny trail" away from OP's question and any specific tips or helps on teaching writing in the homeschooling environment that others can provide for OP.

Best wishes to all.

Edited October 4, 2021 by Lori D.

[EKS]

3 hours ago, Lori D. said:

I was going to comment further on the up-thread generalization about "most people's understanding of 'learning to write' means learning to write literary analysis essays" (?? what is the factual support for that claim??) -- as well as the generalization that there is an overuse of literary analysis essays to the exclusion of other types of argumentative writing by teachers because they are English majors (again: ??). Perhaps that is the case in colleges?? It's not something I see with friends who are public & private middle and high school teachers and who teach a wide range of writing assignment types.

Really?

The only writing assignments I ever had in high school were literary analysis essays.  And it was the same for my kids.  And my English teachers and theirs were English majors.

This is an extremely common experience.  I'm stunned that you haven't seen it.

[EKS]

3 hours ago, Lori D. said:

I also was going to comment on the odd (to me) "conjuring truth" interpretation in regards to writing literary analysis essays, but I realized that has not been my experience in either my own writing, nor in teaching writing, nor in reading students' essays. So, I can't comment there.

You know, there's nothing wrong with conjuring truth.  In fact, I've found it to be extremely interesting and rewarding and meaningful.  That it is conjured doesn't make it less valuable. 

What is it that you think is being done with regard to truth in a literary analysis essay?  If you can't test your ideas against some sort of external arbiter, how is it not a form of conjuring?

Maybe using the term "conjuring" is a bit edgy, but I'm not sure what else to call it.  It is surely less edgy than "making sh*t up," which is what I called it when we first started talking about this.

[Gil]

12 hours ago, Lori D. said:

Just like with Science or Foreign Language or Math, once you have practiced and mastered a concept or type of structure or formula, no need to beat it to death. 😉 

Well, as the unofficial spokes person for the Over Learning Method, we not only beat skills to death, we then resuscitate them and beat them to death  again.

We do Over Learning across the curriculum. 😄

Sorry, @Lori D.,  I'm just nit picking in fun.

Thank you for all that you've contributed to my home school over the years.

[Momto6inIN]

Nothing philosophical to add to the discussion, but one idea I had was to assign a literary analysis essay about a work they already don't like and make it a critical essay (in the negative sense if the word). My kids will do a lot if I give them free reign to be negative and criticize lol

[ieta_cassiopeia]

There is another external arbitration element that is useful for at least some types of literature essay: how people relate to one another. Granted, this study is itself squishy. However, it is one that people have to do all the time in their adult lives in order to function in society. It's also one reason why literary analysis of character-based novels is so difficult for young teenagers: they often don't have much experience of how adults react in those situations (even taking into account differences in time and setting between when the novel was set and nowadays). Literary analysis can help crystallise the notion that there are multiple types of truth, which apply in different settings, are demonstrated in different ways, and have different effects - as well as the notion that people in well-written books have something in common with people in reality (in other words, that novels have something to say about human nature).

 

Writing is something that can be used to get a task done*, to preserve some idea for the future, to persuade others and to help gain a deeper understanding of something. Once a student can do all four of these things well enough to support their current needs, using the tools you have available in your home (including the computer, to the extent you use one for the parts of adult life you think your child is ready to learn), writing can fall away from the curriculum as a separate subject and simply be re-introduced at the point of need. It's a lot easier to teach writing if you know you're only going to be doing it to explain writing for college applications/unfamiliar exam formats/complex job applications etc. , rather than feeling like you have another 4/5 years of daily work to go with no particular endpoint.

* - Writing classes that encourage students to just aim for the A are guilty of overemphasising "writing to get a task done" - namely, the task of getting the A. Such courses are at risk of not even teaching the full range of what tasks writing can accomplish, let alone the other things writing can do.

Edited October 5, 2021 by ieta_cassiopeia

[Zoo Keeper]

14 hours ago, Momto6inIN said:

Nothing philosophical to add to the discussion, but one idea I had was to assign a literary analysis essay about a work they already don't like and make it a critical essay (in the negative sense if the word). My kids will do a lot if I give them free reign to be negative and criticize lol

Yes!  I have done this many times as well, with surprisingly good results.  😉

Edited October 5, 2021 by Zoo Keeper

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, Zoo Keeper said:

Yes!  I have done this many times as well, with surprising good results.  😉

That sounds like a fun idea 😄 . I should remember that. 

[Red Dove]

On 9/29/2021 at 6:53 AM, EKS said:

If you want some ideas for how to teach writing without teaching writing, the book Engaging Ideas is excellent.  It's about embedding writing assignments across the curriculum and about how the act of writing can aid thinking and how clear thinking is a key ingredient to good writing.  It also talks about how to help students become comfortable with genre specific writing.  Highly recommended.

Also, the idea to learn LaTeX now is a good one.

What edition of Engaging Ideas do you have (1st or 2nd)?

[EKS]

9 hours ago, Red Dove said:

What edition of Engaging Ideas do you have (1st or 2nd)?

The second.