Pity and Imitation
Today I thought again about Plato and Aristotle and their views on poetry. Plato, of course, rejected poetry as mere imitation. Since it could not, as a copy of a […]
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A Little Resolution Realism to Start the New Year
I’ve not taken New Year’s resolutions seriously for decades. The reason is simple. I’ve never been able to do much with them. Today, when I consider how hard it is […]
The Way Some People Write
Some people are just better than me. Their house is better than mine. Their kids are more successful and have better attitudes than mine have. Some people have made the […]
The Five Paragraph Theme: What is Being Taught?
Perhaps it is not stretching matters to call the five paragraph theme (hereafter FPT) the foundational writing practice of the public schools. Though long criticized by teachers of Composition for […]
Writing is not like Speech
Writing and speech are too often compared, mistaken for each other even. We consider too often their apparent similarities. Too many of my students claim to write as they speak, […]