The American Scholar

Flunking Description

William Zinsser — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:00:50 +0000

I don’t enjoy descriptive writing; I was fed too much George Eliot and Thomas Hardy in school. I can take just so much heath and bracken. I also don’t like to write what I don’t like to...

The Complete Zinsser on Friday

William Zinsser — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 15:00:33 +0000

Envoi What I’ve learned writing this blog The Overtone Years Sympathetic vibrations at the age of 89 Looking for a Model My true writing style emerged when I became a teacher The Writer Who...

isthistytelhardtoreed

Jessica Love — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 06:00:41 +0000

Say end dog is teen. In the game Mad Gab, players are required to read aloud phrases like this, playing around with speed, stressing, and sing-songedness until their teammates are able to...

Tetélestai

Priscilla Long — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 06:00:31 +0000

“How shall we praise the magnificence of the dead, / The great man humbled, the haughty brought to dust?” There you have the first two lines of Conrad Aiken’s great poem “Tetélestai”—its title...

Nature, Nurture, Fortune, Will

Paula Marantz Cohen — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:00:19 +0000

Last spring, I put the following terms on the board at the end of my Shakespeare class and asked students to vote on which term they felt was most important: Nature Nurture Fortune Will...

Generational Conflict

William Deresiewicz — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 00:01:39 +0000

I really stepped in it the other month. I had published an essay called “Generation Sell” that argued that the culture of today’s youth (the so-called “Millennials”) revolves around the idea...

Stardust Memories

William Zinsser — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 06:00:04 +0000

As Time Goes By Brother, Can You Spare a Dime? Baby, It’s Cold Outside The Lady Is a Tramp Everything’s Coming Up Roses Those are only five of the dozens of phrases and idioms that have been...

What Actually Works

Jessica Love — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 06:00:49 +0000

With an astonishing one year of preschool, one year of kindergarten, six years of elementary school, two years of middle school, four years of high school, four years of college, and five...

Toba

Priscilla Long — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 06:00:59 +0000

I regret the daily, even hourly, use of awesome! to express mild approval, when the antiquated Neat! or Dig it! or the still cool Cool! are hyperbole enough to high-five the fact that we will...

John Dewey

Paula Marantz Cohen — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 06:00:26 +0000

I recently spoke to my sister, a professor English and American Studies at Smith College, about her hero, John Dewey, often seen as the father of progressive education. She recommended that I...