‘War and Peace’: why not?

August 7, 2017

If you may have found that summer and all its anticipated pleasures are sometimes not quite meeting your expectations, why not do something daring?  People, not just your peers, but just about everyone who reads at all, probably looks at a novel of the length of...

Moving your literature teachers to be more daring

June 14, 2017

It is pretty well known that when it comes to choosing the works you will study in your syllabus, teachers are in control, in most cases, of the process. Many considerations play into this: the school situation in terms of boards which have oversight of schools,...

Sound should make sense: better poetry commentaries

May 5, 2017

Sound should make sense: just as the poet uses sound to enrich the meaning as well as the emotional and pleasurable aspects of poems, so should you try to write sensibly about the linking of sound to meaning in your commentaries.  What does the poet gain by...

Abstract? General? Vague?–or just not understood?

May 1, 2017

Here’s something we often find as students try to express their ideas about the literary works they’ve read, and it’s captured in statements like these: ‘The causes of the hero’s death are abstract.’ ‘The town is presented in abstract terms in the poem, rather than...

Sometimes it’s fine to be ‘fresh’

March 8, 2017

Though being ‘fresh’ as in “Don’t be fresh with me, young man, ‘said his mother curtly’  is perhaps a little archaic in usage, working to get your writing to be ‘fresh’ is a goal worth aspiring to and will offend no...

Writing tips #3: Get to the point!

February 8, 2017

Some of us (teachers and students alike) are handicapped in delivering what we want to say in the most direct way (17 words) –or to put it another way– we all have trouble being direct (6 words). Sometimes this weakness arises from a love of words,...