Making Jeremiah the prophet relevant to modern day high school students is a neat trick, and I’d like to have a long talk with the teacher who can pull it off. The problem is Jeremiah’s preoccupation with idolatry, the crafting and worshiping of wooden statues. The entire prophecy is a diatribe against this practice, and since few of my students are pagan sculptors, they have a hard time relating…
Sculpture and Sabbath in Jeremiah Read More »
Much has been made in recent years of the prime opportunity childhood presents to shape lifetime readers. Reading aloud, in particular, is the word on the street where methodology is concerned. With videos and entertainment on the cultural rise, parents no longer have the luxury of throwing a book at a child and hoping it will “take.” Now, they must read it to them, guide them, captivate, and verily, enchant them into the magical kingdom of imaginative literature. Certainly, reading aloud may perform this function and a multitude of others that prove equally valuable…
How Then Shall We Read? – An Apology for Literary Analysis Read More »
So, I’ve been listening to an album recently, and it has me thinking about the purpose of “art.” The album is perkily titled, We’re All Gonna Die, and I’m thoroughly obsessed with it. I’ve spent hours unpacking the lush orchestration, focusing this time on the perfectly liquid bass parts, next on the engrossing and sensitive drum tracks, and then on Taylor Goldsmith’s quietly pitch perfect voice. I just can’t seem to get enough. But, being a reader by nature, I also can’t help but be confronted with the sadness written into each track…
Dawes, Art, and Good Criticism Read More »
As the Western world observes the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation – just kidding; I know most people are trick-or-treating instead – I am struck by its lasting effect on all things literary. It is amazing how, no matter what we believe theologically, we read and teach in a world informed by Martin Luther and those crazy 16th century theologians…
Literary Education and the Reformation Read More »
The capacity for self-knowledge is the thing that makes us human. Since education is the cultivation of mature humanity in students, we conclude that education happens when a student catches a glimpse of himself as a thinking creature. In the best case scenario, this glimmer of self-knowledge leads him further, to understand himself as an imperfect creature – a sinful creature, desperately in need of Grace…
What is a Literary Education? Read More »
Missy and I spend a lot of time showing parents how to teach short stories with pictures by means of simple questions like “does the main character succeed?” This approach has helped thousands of teachers get young students started in literary reading with children’s classics like Mem Fox’s Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, Patricia MacLachlan’s All the Places to Love, or Jane Yolen’s Owl Moon. But what, we are often asked, should older students do? Are there other methods necessary to develop students at the high school level?…
What Mathematics Can Teach Us About Literature Read More »
I recently began re-reading The Wind in the Willows for the umpteenth time, and, as classic novels are wont to do, it communicated to me in an entirely different way than it has before. I’ve been struck over the years by a lot of wonderful things in this little book, from Mole’s once-earned-never-lost loyalty, to Rat’s effortless hospitality, and Badger’s deep and abiding self-confidence. But one thing I hadn’t realized until now is that Mr. Toad and I are remarkably similar…
I can’t stop thinking about the passage in C. S. Lewis’s The Weight of Glory that I wrote about in my last post, where he cautions us against idolizing our memories of the past: “they are only the scent of a flower we have not found,” he says. I am sure he chose that image because of a flower’s beauty, but I wonder if he also had in mind how fleeting that beauty was designed to be…
Flowers, Seeds, and Students Read More »
Woody Allen’s 2011 movie Midnight in Paris has it all: a star-studded cast, fantastic music, beautiful settings, and great camerawork. However, its greatest feature is the story itself. The protagonist is aspiring writer Gil Pender, who stumbles into a magic vortex that allows him to travel back to 1920s Paris, a place and time that he considers the high point of Western culture…
Teaching the Past with Woody Allen Read More »
Two in the morning might just be the loneliest time. The house lies still; only my thoughts run. Lists of what I have done and what I must do alternately congratulate and accuse me, while instant replays of the previous day’s conversations play on my mind’s screen. Soon enough, I flee my bed for the solace of my living room chair. Here I sit in a pool of light with only Marilynne Robinson for company, and one could do worse to chase away night demons…
Nightlights and Night Watches: The Unifying Experience of Literature Read More »
