Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Literacy, Wisdom, and Virtue #2: Reading Aloud

Words are meant to be spoken. Yes, we write them and read them, but that is really a secondary function. A writer says the words in his head as he composes, just as a reader hears the words in his head as he reads. Thus, even the written word is a type of long-distance conversation.

What’s more, there is something about the sound of writing that either attracts us or repels us.

Just watch the face of a little child when he hears a well-read story. His eyes light up with understanding. His face smiles along with excitement or drops with sadness. He nods to show agreement or frowns to show objection. He feels like he is in the story, like the author wrote it just for him. He thinks about every word and asks questions whenever the reader pauses to take a breath. He is quite literally trying to speak to the author.

Clearly, reading aloud is as instinctual as it is meaningful. All of us want to hear words so we can really listen to them. For that reason, classical educators rely heavily on various types of reading aloud.

Teacher-led

One of the most obvious strategies is teacher-led read-alouds. There are many variations of this depending on the age group. For middle school students, I find it best to have them read along in their books while I read to them. I make a point of modeling critical thinking by pausing frequently and asking questions about the text. My goal is for students to learn how to engage the story deeply by showing them what an internal dialogue with a story looks like.

When reading “The Lady of Shalott” by Alfred Lord Tennyson, I might say something like, “I wonder why he uses bridle in this verse…Can you think of a homonym that we might substitute…Yes, bridal, as in getting married!…What message is Tennyson trying to convey about how the Lady of Shalott feels?…Yes, she wants to find love!”

Another good thing about reading aloud to students is that it establishes a proper pace for them. It slows down the reading process for those who are inclined to speed ahead and pushes others forward who might generally lag behind. As the adage goes, it keeps everyone on the same page, which is very important for generating insightful discussion.

But that does not mean it forces an artificial equilibrium in the classroom. Rather, it scaffolds the learning process in a wonderful way. “Developing” readers get a keener understanding of the text and increase their comprehension. Meanwhile, “advanced” readers are able to more critically analyze the underlying meaning and extract its wisdom.

Likewise, everyone benefits from hearing the appropriate pronunciation of words, use of pauses, and tonal inflections. It shows students what the words are supposed to sound like, which can be difficult when reading is done only in one’s own head. Teacher-led read-alouds model what students should be aspiring toward.

Student-led

But exclusively reading aloud to students is not productive in the long-run. They must also read-aloud themselves. This helps students develop their reading fluency and hear what their own voice sounds like. To this end, it allows them to “check” their own reading in a much more accurate way than simply hearing their voice in their head.

As we all know from experience, something might sound better in our heads than when spoken. So, if we want students to develop to their best potential, they need the most accurate measure of their progress, which comes from reading aloud. They need to hear their own voice, not an idealized internal version of it.

Paired with this, of course, is the teacher’s ability to assess the student. Only by hearing a student can the teacher know where he is struggling, help him master tough words, and point out the right places to pause and inflect.

I once heard an educator say that students should never be forced to read aloud since some are so uncomfortable doing so. I strongly disagree with this view. Well-intentioned as it may be, I think it is a tremendous disservice to students because it denies them a premium opportunity to improve their reading.

What’s more, I think it’s fairly easy to establish a respectful, loving reading culture in a classroom where students feel encouraged and supported. At the outset of the school year, I let my students know that everyone will read throughout the day (and not in a “popcorn” fashion). When called upon, the student stands, and everyone else reads along silently. No one but me is allowed to correct a student.

Some students will always be more comfortable than others, but the inability to “opt-out” and the insistence on a respectful reading culture helps everyone feel “safe.” As the school year progresses, struggling readers improve, gain confidence, and realize that everyone mispronounces words and needs help.

Choral Reading

A variation of student-led read-alouds is choral reading, which consists of the teacher reading aloud along with the whole class in one voice. This is one of my favorites. It lets everyone practice reading at the same time, which is very efficient. Additionally, it provides “cover” for struggling students by letting their mistakes blend into the chorus of voices. Plus, since the teacher is reading, too, the students have a good model to follow along with. Although the teacher cannot as easily hone in on individual mistakes, students automatically self-correct.

Blended Read-Aloud

Another variation is to employ a little bit of each strategy, kind of like the “I read; we read; you read” approach taught in conventional teacher education classes. For example, the teacher might start off reading aloud a chapter in King Arthur and Knights of the Round Table. Then, once the setting and tone are established, turn it over to students for individual read-alouds or choral reading.

Assessment

It is helpful to remember that reading aloud to and with students does not ensure comprehension. Many times have I read and discussed passages with students and felt they understood it only to realize that some number were still grasping with concepts and ideas.

That is where assessments come in handy. They can be in various formal and informal formats, but they should definitely be completed independently. For example, a student might check in verbally with a teacher through a simple conversation, narrate a story in verbal or written form, answer a reading guide, complete a journal entry, or something similar. I like using a combination of all of these with the various Great Books my students read. More on assessments, including examples, in the next post!

Not only does the assessment give the teacher much needed insight into a student’s progress, but it also compels the student to articulate his ideas. After all, that’s the goal—helping students to understand and form their own ideas in the process.

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

The Lady of Shalott #4: Copia Exercise

When I first assigned copia as part of my class’s study of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, “The Lady of Shallot,” I only meant for them to work on language expression as a relatively quick warm-up to begin Literature class. That is, I wanted them to rewrite Tennyson’s poem in their own words while staying True to his meaning. As expected, most students wrote their copias in paragraph format.

But a few students took it upon themselves to add the extra challenge of writing in verse. I was amazed as they replicated Tennyson’s language patterns, including his rhyme scheme and meter!

Next thing I knew, everyone was trying to do the same thing with their copias. Our “little” writing warm-up had turned into something gigantic. We ended up using entire class periods to annotate and rewrite single stanzas. It looked something like this:

10 minutes discussing the stanza and marking up Tennyson’s original ideas. We would come up with synonyms, unpack symbolism, and unveil as much hidden meaning as we could.

10 minutes to rewrite the stanza as a single sentence. Our goal was to not only illustrate comprehension of Tennyson’s meaning, but to represent it in a beautiful, artistic way.

15 minutes to rewrite the stanza in poetic form. Once again, our goal was to stay true to Tennyson’s original meaning, but we also wanted to capture his rhyme scheme and meter.

10 minutes for students to share their copias, which most were eager to do. They would applaud one another’s readings with “ooohs” and “aaaahs” and “wows,” secretly hoping theirs would outshine the rest. It was a little like an evening at a poetry club.

Since that first group of students, I have played around with how to structure class periods, but I have stuck with the basic method of instruction. From year-to-year, the end products are consistently beautiful.

The following examples are based on Part III, Stanza I of the poem, which introduces Sir Lancelot. Here are Tennyson’s original words.

A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley-sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro’ the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight for ever kneel’d
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.

Once we analyzed the stanza, students were ready to rewrite it as a single sentence.

Here are three short student copias.

EXAMPLE ONE

Sir Lancelot, graced with honor and beauty, flashed across her mirror.

EXAMPLE TWO

She saw a man unlike any other, more handsome and noble, and she longed to reach out to him.

EXAMPLE THREE

The mighty Sir Lancelot emblazed his image on her heart.

Here are three long student copias.

EXAMPLE ONE

In the mirror sparkling clear,
Between the barley far and near,
Between the many emerald tears,
Came he whose very name is feared,
The knight Sir Lancelot.
His shield shone with an image clear,
Of a red-crossed knight with gleaming spear,
Who knelt before his lady dear,
As if for she he fought.

EXAMPLE TWO

From further than the longest night,
Came man on horseback riding light,
A young, handsome, and noble knight,
Not strong in virtue but strong in fight,
The bold Sir Lancelot.
A red-cross knight forever sworn
To protecting all by word and sword,
There she stood and could not ignore,
The bold Sir Lancelot.

EXAMPLE THREE

When he rides it gives a fright,
One of Arthur’s near-perfect knights,
They say he’s never lost a fight,
Could cut you down with a single strike,
The brave Sir Lancelot.
She reflects upon his armor’s sheen,
She looks at how his broad sword gleams,
She knows not that her face does beam,
The Lady of Shalott.

Not surprisingly, each copia example reflects a considerable investment of time and energy by the student. Though the writing came easier for some than others, all had to carefully work through the process.

What may be surprising is that each of the students experienced tremendous joy and satisfaction in the midst of toiling through the writing. Of course they were happy when they were done, but so too were they excited as they worked. And that makes for beautiful poetry.

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

The Lady of Shalott #3: Memory Work

No matter how well versed my students are in memory work, long narrative poems tend to be a source of anxiety—but only at first. Such is the case with Alfred Lord Tennyson’s poem, “The Lady of Shallot” At nineteen stanzas long with nine verses each, it is little wonder my students look downcast when I first tell them we will be memorizing the whole thing.

“That’s a sha-lot of words,” a student once quipped.

Nevertheless, within the first week or so, a sense of pride and accomplishment takes over. Students realize that long memory work is no different than short memory work, provided it is done in a well-paced, strategic manner. Then by the end, they shrug off the assignment like it was no big deal. Of course, that’s not really the case. The work is hard and even relentless, but it stops feeling that way once they understand how to manage it.

But why take on such a big project in the first place? In a world where information is readily available with the swipe of a finger or the tap of a keyboard, why should students invest time in committing anything, let alone a poem about a fictional character, to memory anyways?

As classical educators have long held, the reasons are many!

To begin with, memorizing poetry provides students with a ready store of language patterns to draw from. I have seen this firsthand over and over again. After committing a poem to memory, student writing will showcase many of the new patterns, not to mention a huge stockpile of new vocabulary words.

Similarly, memory work deepens student understanding of the material and allows them to engage it in a more meaningful way than simply reading it and discussing it. By spending so much time imprinting the words into their minds, they come to embody the ideas behind them.

Philosophically speaking, the poems become a type of music for their souls that will stay with them throughout their lives.

“All that is well and good,” one might say, “but give me a more scientific justification!”

Well, here is one. Memory work strengthens the brain and makes it more agile for all sorts of other work. Many of us know this through our own experience. Just think of all the phone numbers your mother stored in her memory before the age of cellphones on top of the endless doctor’s appointments and soccer practices and birthdays and so forth. Compared to a lot of us today, she would be considered a savant. Yet, all she was really doing was making her brain work. The more it worked at memorizing information, the better it got at it.

Research backs this up as well. Take a look at Benedict Carey’s book, How We Learn: The Surprising Truth about When, Where, and Why It Happens. He draws together a vast array of research that shows how the brain gets stronger as it commits more things to memory. What’s more, the possibilities of what and how much one can memorize are seemingly endless.

That brings us to the question of how students should memorize “The Lady of Shalott.” I recommend using a variety of strategies, all of which should be led by the teacher and reinforced at home.

A Little at a Time

The first and most fundamental is chunking the poem into smaller sections. That makes it much more manageable for students because they can work on memorizing a little at a time. “The Lady of Shalott” has four parts, with four stanzas in the first, four in the second, five in the third, and six in the fourth.  As such, I have the class memorize one part at a time and end up with four quizzes throughout the duration of our study. I use the strategies below for each part.

Recite. Recite. Recite.

For several days, we simply recite an entire part of the poem together as a class. They may have a copy out to read along or just listen and join in by ear. Either way, students gain an initial understanding of how the poem sounds and grow accustomed to its rhythm and melody.

Sometimes we recite as a single voice. Other times, I say a line and they repeat it. Still other times, I say the beginning of a line, and they finish it. I like using a combination of these approaches because it forces students to attend more closely to what they are saying. As we get more comfortable, I begin calling on students to lead the class through similar practice.

This type of repeated recitation is absolutely essential in memory work. As such, I encourage students to do similar work at home. Some, however, do not end up needing to do any because the classroom practice is enough.

Memory Moves

The next step is to ask students to come up with motions to go along with the poem. It might seem a little silly at first, especially for older students, but it is a dynamic way for them to visually imagine the story behind the poem and cue their memory in the process. Plus, it tends to be a lot of fun!

To that end, we line up around the classroom, and I assign a couple verses each to pairs of students, being sure to match the order of the verses with their line order. They come up with some kind of “move,” like spreading their arms wide as if they were separating water when they say, “On either side of the river lie.”

After the first pair teaches its move to the rest of the class, the second group goes. Then, we put it all together—words and moves—from the beginning. We repeat this process until we get through the whole poem.

By the end, students have a strong association between the moves and the words, which is mutually reinforcing. I always smile to myself when I see them quietly wriggling their bodies in recollection when it comes time for a quiz.

Writing Makes Perfect

The final step is helping students learn to write it out in proper poetic format, meaning they separate the verses and stanzas appropriately. For this, I have students number each verse in the stanza 1-9 and so forth. I give them the first word or two on the board, and they fill in whatever else they can remember.

This is always harder than the oral recitation, largely because it is completed independently. Students who think they know the whole thing soon realize they don’t. As such, it’s an important “check-point.” We write out the poem many times, and students remember more and more with each practice.

When quiz time rolls around, most students ace it, and of them do well.

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

The Legend of King Arthur #3: Quest Motif

A motif is simply a fancy word for theme. I like using it with my students because of its special application to literature and the arts.  

One of the most important motifs in King Arthur is the “knightly quest,” which is two-fold. To begin with, there is a literal quest such as saving a damsel in distress. Alongside this, the knight must also undertake a figurative quest, which I refer to as a “quest for virtue.” Every knight, whether it be Sir Gawain, Sir Lancelot, or King Arthur himself, is constantly seeking virtue in his life and struggling to overcome vice in the process.  

Before we go any further, it is helpful to define a few terms. The simplest definition of virtue is “a good habit.” While I like this definition, it still needs more. After all, not every good habit can automatically be called a virtue. For example, of course it is “good” to clear your plate from the dinner table, but we probably would not call that a virtue. We would simply call it a good habit.  

Virtues, then, need to be placed within their natural Christian context. They are habits of the soul that manifest in our actions. Moreover, they are not something we can simply obtain and move on from. We must do them over and over again so that we embody them.  

Faith, hope, and charity, the three theological virtues, figure prominently on the quests, but they might sound a little more Arthurian if we unpack the terms slightly.

Faith can be seen in the knights’ fealty, loyalty, and obedience to God, king, and country.

Likewise, hope is best reflected in the virtue of trust around which the Round Table and the Code of Chivalry are built. Knights forge a trust in one another and further trust that the goodness of their social compact will bear fruit for the realm as a whole.

Finally, charity, more properly defined here as sacrificial love, permeates everything and is most obviously at the heart of chivalry itself, which means helping another in need no matter the cost. A major virtue that goes hand-in-hand with this is humility, as it is a prerequisite of all service.    

For every virtue, there is an equal and opposite vice: humility vs. pride; fealty vs. treason; chivalry vs. cravenness; and so on.  

To summarize Arthurian quests, a knight must save a damsel or perform some such heroic act, while also trying to overcome a vice, in order to embody a particular virtue. And, even once the quest is complete, there is no guarantee that he will perpetually embody that virtue unless he keeps working at it. Moreover, each knight, including King Arthur, has particular vices he struggles with, making certain virtues his objective. 

The literal aspect of each knightly quest is fairly easy for students to objectively measure; either he saves the damsel or not. But the figurative part is very difficult and makes for wonderful debates, which we will get to later. It also makes the knights, fictitious and fantastic though they are, profoundly human.  

On a final note, quests were a major motif in medieval literature as a whole, making it an important study for students of the Middle Ages in general. The medieval quest, sometimes characterized as a pilgrimage, was a metaphor for man’s earthly journey to Heaven. At the end of the day, that was what it was all about in the medieval mindset (and in a classical classroom)!

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Lessons from Laura: Almanzo’s Horses

Laura Ingalls Wilder brilliantly introduces the story of her husband, Almanzo Wilder in Farmer Boy, the second of her Little House books. The plot revolves around one seemingly simple question: Should Almanzo grow up to be a farmer like his father? Yes, he concludes at the end of that story, for then he shall have a horse of his own.

Almanzo Wilder, c. 1880s

Horses prove a life-long obsession for Almanzo and one that Laura shares. When their paths finally cross in By the Shores of Silver Lake, she notices his horses—and then him. Here is what she says: “Suddenly into the sunny green and blue came two brown horses with flowing black manes and tails, sitting side by side in harness. Their brown flanks and shoulders gleamed in the sunshine, their slender legs stepped daintily, their necks were arched and their ears pricked up, and they tossed their heads proudly as they went by…a young man stood up in the wagon, driving…”

The young man, as we know, is Almanzo. Perhaps Laura sequences her attention this way because she is being coy, but given the recurrence of this type of picture—indeed, she always seems to notice Almanzo’s horses before noticing him—it seems she is pointing to something more literary. Almanzo’s horses are not simply a prize that Laura wants to win as his someday spouse; they are a motif for the adventurous spirit they share.

A Language Lesson

Let’s consider their adventurous spirit by classifying and diagramming the following sentences that tell of Laura helping Almanzo tame a horse named Barnum. Some of these are Laura’s words exactly from These Happy Golden Years; others have been adapted. If you are unfamiliar with this type of language exercise, take a look at this blog series here where I break it down in detail.

Final Thoughts

Although Laura takes the reins in the short scene pictured above, we know from reading the full series and following her life more broadly that she and Almanzo were a team. Sometimes he drove; sometimes she drove. Either way, Barnum and other such horses were likely to run away if Laura and Almanzo didn’t keep their cool and work together with steadfast resolve. Barnum is the first horse they tamed together, ultimately teaching him how to walk. But that doesn’t mean he stopped running altogether. He simply learned to pace himself appropriately.

Therein lies the final lesson from Laura for this blog series: Taming the passions of one’s heart is part of blazing the trail of life.   

Laura and Almanzo Wilder, 1885

Laura, we well know, was much like Pa in always wanting to go West. But also like Pa, she tamed that passion to embrace the duties of running a household. After much suffering, including more that comes after the timeframe of the series, Laura and Almanzo settle down on Rocky Ridge Farm in Mansfield, Missouri, far from either of their childhood families. They live out their lives, shifting from season to season, never forgetting their upbringing and ultimately bringing it back to life for the benefit of so many others through the Little House books.

For as much effort as some have made to include Rose in that process, it bears mentioning that Almanzo played a role, too. He encouraged Laura’s writing, supported her travels, and furnished her with ample knowledge of building and workmanship and other farm know-how. Even more importantly, he recognized who she was and what she was capable of.

Tamed by life but never broken in spirit, Laura and Almanzo are nothing less than trailblazers who have inspired untold numbers to take life by the reins.

Images courtesy of Wiki Commons

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Exercise for a Storyteller #5: Play with an Archetype

Understanding the role of archetypes in stories is essential for an aspiring storyteller. Not to be confused with stereotypes, an archetype is a literary term that refers to a “first type” or “fundamental type” of character or other story element. “Damsels in distress” and “knights in shining armor” are typical examples of archetypes found in the legend of King Arthur, which subsequent stories have come to replicate in various forms.

For example, C.S. Lewis has many knights in shining armor in his Chronicles of Narnia, albeit with his own distinct twists. Peter is a perfect example of this. Though a young boy and living in the mid-twentieth century, he is very much a knight, ready and willing to make personal sacrifices to save others. As for damsels in distress, Susan is the only one of his Narnia characters who fits this type, albeit in a spiritual rather than a literal way.

Tolkien also uses many archetypes from King Arthur in his telling of The Lord of the Rings. His truest knight in shining armor is Aragorn, although his entire fellowship—from Frodo to Gimli—could rightly fall into this type. Like Lewis, Tolkien’s a little short on damsels in distress, but he makes ample use of another of my favorite archetypes from King Arthur: the “hero’s dilemma.”

This one refers to when a hero must choose between two opposed, but seemingly equally worthy tasks. For example, should one of Arthur’s knights save a damsel in distress from certain death or catch a villain bound to kill untold numbers? Of course, he would love to do both, but he can’t—that’s the dilemma. 

In The Lord of the Rings, Aragorn faces a hero’s dilemma when he must decide whether to follow after Frodo and Sam and help them destroy the Ring, or try to rescue Merry and Pippin from their Orc captors. The heaviness of this decision weighs on the reader as much as it does on the characters.

(Luckily, for Middle Earth, helping Merry and Pippin in the short term ultimately helps everyone in the long term!)

While there are considerably more than these three archetypes, I find them to be the most useful starting places for my students. No matter what we’re reading, I can ask them a question like, “Is there a knight in shining armor in this story?”

Chances are, if the story is medieval, the answer will be yes. But if the story is more ancient, say a Greek myth or an Aesop fable, then the answer is a lot more nuanced. The same is true with a more modern story.

Take Huck Finn, for example. Is he a knight in shining armor? Though his ragged clothes would suggest otherwise, he does have a lot of the necessary characteristics. After all, he is trying to “rescue” Jim from slavery. Then again, maybe he’s a type of damsel in distress since Jim is rescuing him, too.

The point of asking whether Huck, or any character, is a knight in shining armor is not so much to force him into a box. Rather, it’s to show a child how archetypes define all characters in some way. Once a child understands that archetypes are part of a longstanding pattern in stories, then he can begin to adapt the pattern to his liking.

Here is an example of how I use these archetypes for storytelling in my classroom.

First, I have my students choose one of our two main character archetypes—a knight in shining armor or a damsel in distress—and create a new character based on it. Perhaps the new character will fit the original type closely (think Batman or Lad, a Dog). Or perhaps the new character will completely defy it (think Shrek or Princess Fiona). Either way is fine. As part of that process, I also have them interview their character as described in this previous post.

Once the new character is more or less imagined, I have my students create an archetypical “hero’s dilemma” that suits the character. The magnitude of that dilemma could be as serious as saving a life or as trivial as picking out shoes for prom. Again, it’s totally up to them.

Last of all, I have my students write the scene of their dilemma through the point when their character makes his or her choice. We always share as many stories aloud as possible, and this kind of story is a particularly fun one to listen to as a class. Because it contains a hero’s dilemma, we like voting on whether the hero made the right choice or not. Inevitably, there is a lot of disagreement among us, and that’s a sign that the dilemma was appropriately compelling.

Although it’s unlikely that C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien ever sat down with a teacher and completed an exercise like this, it seems fairly obvious that they were thinking in these terms when they wrote their great stories. No matter the precise method, the aspiring storyteller will benefit tremendously from writing with archetypes.

And it’s fun and easy, too. After all, there’s no need to re-invent the archetype—just play around with it.  

First Image Credit: The Fight in the Queen’s Ante-chamber by Walter Crane, 1911

Second Image Credit: Huckleberry Finn and Jim on Their Raft by E.W. Kemble, 1884

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Exercise for a Storyteller #3: Interview the Main Character

So far in this series of storytelling exercises, we’ve focused on ways to develop compelling plots. Now it’s time to think about the characters themselves. After all, even the most fascinating plot will fall flat if its characters are dull and one-dimensional.

To begin, let’s consider what character development means. We’ll keep it simple and say that it’s the craft through which a writer makes a character come to life. The better the character development, the easier it is for a reader to know a character inside and out. That means being able to picture what a character looks like and being able to imagine what he’s thinking at any given moment in a story. In other words, the character is more than his looks or his role in the story. He is the total sum of his words and actions, hopes and fears, and virtues and vices.

Many writers let those things develop organically in the course of writing a story, meaning they “discover” who their characters are as the story unfolds. The problem for a child, though, is that process requires a fair amount of revision, not to mention a serious time commitment.

To help my students really know their characters from the start, I like having them “interview” their main characters before writing a story. For example, when we finish reading Beowulf, students often write their own spin-offs. But first, I have them interview their main character. Many of them choose to interview Beowulf or one of the other minor heroes like Hrothgar or Wiglaf, but others choose Grendel or Grendel’s Mother or the Fire Dragon. Some even choose lesser characters like Unferth or Brecca or Aeschere.

I usually give my students a few standard questions and have them write the interview out in a formal fashion in their journals. They may answer the questions based on what the character seems like in the original story, or they may imagine the character in a new light. Here is a list of sample questions I like to use.

State your full name and age.

Tell me about your family.

What are your hobbies?

What is your biggest hope?

What is your biggest secret?

What is your biggest fear?

What is your best virtue?

What is your worst vice?

The list of questions could go on and on, but a short sample is plenty to get a child started. Then, I ask my students to come up with a few original questions, which allows them to expand on a side of the character they really want to develop.

The results of this are highly entertaining, and we spend ample time sharing our interviews with each other. I once had a student interview Grendel’s Mother and find out that she had a soft spot for “Baby Mine” from Dumbo. (The Grendel family descends from Cain and hates music, which made this twist very intriguing.) Another time, a student “discovered” that Hrothgar slept with a nightlight. (He is the king whom Beowulf saves from Grendel and Grendel’s Mother.) And who knew that Wiglaf’s greatest treasure was a fingernail clipping from the arm Beowulf tore off Grendel in their death match? (That was a comical, yet fitting treasure for a warrior who revered Beowulf as the greatest of all warriors.)

In true journalistic form, my students imagine they are getting the scoop on characters, and they are in a sense. All the while, they are learning to develop strong, believable characters for their stories. Whether they are working from an existing story or writing a completely original one, interviewing main characters is a great way to get started. As the character takes shape, the storyline itself will come alive more fully.

Image Credit: Illustration in Stories of Beowulf by H. E. Marshall. New York: E. P. Dutton & Company, 1908.

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

The Third Habit of a Storyteller: Start with a Picture

Over and over again in his writings about The Chronicles of Narnia, C.S. Lewis stated that the ideas for his series started with pictures in his head. Here is one example from Of Other Worlds: “At first they were not a story, just pictures. The Lion [, the Witch, and the Wardrobe] all began with a picture of a Faun carrying an umbrella and parcels in a snowy wood.This picture had been in my mind since I was about sixteen. Then one day, when I was about forty, I said to myself: ‘Let’s try to make a story about it.’ At first I had very little idea how the story would go. But then suddenly Aslan came bounding into it.”

Just as an artist holds an image in his mind when his pencil glides across his paper the first time, a storyteller must hold an image in his mind in order for his words to pour out.

In Lewis’s case, his picture had to sit and marinate a long while before it turned into something more, something with additional characters and a landscape and a storyline. No doubt, all that time he was filling up more and more on the “cauldron of story” J.R.R. Tolkien identified and adding to his picture on some deeper level. From this, we learn that the third habit of the storyteller is drawing. Without a picture, a storyteller can hardly have anything to tell.

Most children have at least a vague picture in mind when they begin telling a story, and that usually begins with a character. For example, children usually know to share character details like age, height, hair color, and eye color. That’s a good start, but it’s more of a rough outline than an actual sketch. Start talking about the shape of his frame, the look in his eyes, and the flow of his hair, and the picture will begin to come to life.

One way to help this process along is for a child to draw an actual picture of his character. Sure, the picture might not be museum worthy, but that’s okay. It’s the imagining that goes along with the drawing that matters.

“That’s not right,” the child might say over and over again as he draws his character on paper. And that’s a good thing. With each misplaced stroke of the pencil, he is forming a more perfect picture of his character in his mind. Ultimately, the actual picture is merely a creative vehicle for the imaginary one, the one that will be put into words.

The same should be done with the setting of the story. Here it’s helpful to think of J.R.R. Tolkien and the way he painted the landscape of Middle Earth throughout The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion. With the help of his son, Tolkien drew countless maps of Middle Earth. This not only helped him visualize the world of his story, but it helped him develop the story itself. By his own account, his maps were an integral part of his storytelling process. In a letter to his publisher, he stated, “one cannot make a map for the narrative, but must first make a map and make the narrative agree.”

The child storyteller would do well to follow this example and draw his own maps. Again, it doesn’t have to be pretty; it just needs to be well-ordered, logically spaced, and labeled so that the child can visualize the spatial dimensions and terrain of the world he has imagined. From there, he will be able to picture its inhabitants and their comings and goings (aka the story itself) more perfectly.

Much like Boxening the story, starting with a picture has very little to do with writing at first, but it makes all the difference when a child eventually feels moved to put his story into words. The more developed the picture, the better the story.

We’ll take up the writing of stories in the next series. But rest assured, these three habits: filling up on the cauldron, Boxening the story, and starting with a picture will make the writing part of storytelling more beautiful and more fun.

Image Credit: Enfant Dessinant (Child Drawing) by Félix-Hilaire Buhot (1972)

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Essay Writing #5: The Personal Argument

I teach the personal argument last of the three essay formats I have laid out in this series, and it always throws my students off at first. So trained as they are to develop a thesis and follow a set structure and organization in their writing, they expect the personal argument to be the same.

But it isn’t. In fact, it shouldn’t even read like an essay when it’s done. It should read like a short story. Let’s take a look at the principles at play in a personal argument.

THE “PERSON” IN PERSONAL
Heidi Writing by Jessie Willcox Smith

Personal arguments are a basic requirement of a just about any academic application. Why do you want to attend such and such school? What is your crowning achievement so far in your life?

These are hard questions to answer, especially for young, self-conscious students. They often think that a personal essay is akin to a job interview, but it shouldn’t be. It should really be like the beginning of a lifelong friendship. Just as two people get to know one another by sharing stories and making new ones together, a personal argument should do the same thing: It should tell a story about oneself that answers the essay question. 

Rather than talk about being a hard-worker and commit to rigorous study sessions in the next school system, a good personal argument would tell a story about doing hard work. I remember the time I had to fill in last minute for the lead role in my class’s production of King Lear…

Now that’s an essay an admissions counselor would pay attention to. By the end of reading it, the counselor would feel like he actually knew the student and could picture the student making similar contributions in another school environment.

THE PLOT OF THE ESSAY

First and foremost, the plot must be drawn from real-life. It can be exaggerated, of course, but only to the extent that it still reveals the true nature of the student. Choosing stories is often the most difficult for my students and, thus, the most important piece to talk-through with others. It’s helpful to share the story aloud before writing it with a classmate or parent and see how it goes over.

What did you learn about me from this story? If the answer is different than what was intended, the student may need to repackage the story or try a different one.

Personal arguments need all the traditional plot elements: exposition, inciting incident, rising action, climax, falling action, and resolution. Moreover, they need to have literal and figurative components.

For example, a literal inciting incident might be that the teacher asked me to memorize all of so-and-so’s lines for tomorrow’s play. Figuratively, that inciting incident reveals a challenge for the student’s work ethic and ability. So everything that follows in the plot would match those two ideas together, hopefully culminating with a successful performance.

It’s tempting to spell out the figurative side in the resolution, but I tend to think it’s better not to since it can change the tone of the story. If well-written, the message should be read in-between the lines. 

A REMINDER ABOUT PROCESS

Fox With A Quill Pen by H. Plancquet

Like the simple argument and the classical argument, the writing process in the personal argument is as important as ever. Students should brainstorm their stories and outline each separate element of the plot before writing it.

And the first draft should not be their last. The best personal arguments get revised dramatically from start to finish.

Initial revisions should focus on the storyline to make sure that it works. Once that’s in place, then the student should play around with the narration and dialogue so it reads like a gripping story and not just a summary of something that happened once. A final revision would clean up grammar, polish syntax, and sharpen word choice.

The reader, often an admissions counselor, will no doubt learn a great deal about the student from his personal argument. Best of all, the student will get to know himself better, too.

Images courtesy of the New York Public Library

Posted on by Stephanie McGann

Essay Writing #1: The Idea

A good essay starts with a good idea. It’s really that simple. Thus, much of my “writing instruction” doesn’t even involve writing. Instead, it consists of Socratic discussions and disputations based on the great books in our Literature studies or the rich content of our History lessons.

And that’s the special something that makes essays in a classical classroom turn out so nicely. They are not one-off assignments or formulaic gobbley gook from a pre-packaged writing program.

Certainly students can write wonderful essays drawn from fairly typical prompts like, “Who is your favorite athlete?” In my first few years of teaching, I sampled some of those prompts, and the essays were okay at best. They generally read like the students didn’t care all that much about what they were saying, almost like they felt the prompts were beneath them. Frankly, they were.

Students are capable of much deeper thinking beyond what Derek Jeter or even Babe Ruth can elicit. They need a chance to engage the “big questions” and to develop and write out their own opinions on ideas related to life and death, love and romance, wisdom and foolishness, to name a few.

At least in my classroom, essays drawn from King Arthur or The Marriage Set have students on the edge of their seats. Likewise, an essay to evaluate the justice of the Crusades in the Middle Ages sparks an impassioned response. And the reason students engage those essays with such passion is because they had ample time to develop and defend their ideas during a unit. They already have skin in the game, so to speak.

What’s more, students enjoy defining their own essay topics because they have so many ideas to work with. I think John Steinbeck was right when he said,

Rabbits by Henri-Charles Guérard

Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen.”

In a classical classroom, students get to “pet” dozens and dozens of “bunnies” before they raise one into an essay. All that experience builds confidence in students and helps the chosen “bunnies” thrive.

For example, when we read Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, we spend a lot of time dealing with the concept of “construction of memoir.” From those discussions, one student might write an essay on whether or not Mark Twain was “telling the truth” about Joan’s life. Another might write about the type of military leader Joan was and another about how she handled herself during her trial and condemnation. Each of those essays reflects discussions we had in class, albeit with additional ideas unique to individual students.

While my approach to writing instruction is fluid enough to draw from almost anything we discuss, it is also deliberate in its planning and implementation. My goal is for all of my students to learn the writing process and be able to apply it to three essay formats: the simple essay, the classical essay, and the personal essay. I will breakdown what this entails in subsequent posts. 

Image courtesy of The National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.