Literacy begins in the home
Oct. 26th, 2008 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
theoldwolfPosting this in response to a justified rant by ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
torakiyoshi on the functional illiteracy of so many students in America.
The complete absence of writing skills has just as much to do with a lack of global Weltanschauung as it does to poor teaching skills within the English classroom. The foundation of good writing is a hunger for knowledge and expansive, voracious, eclectic reading. We emulate that which we know and appreciate.
When our children were little, we would make at least three trips to the library per week, and bring back 20 books or so each time. My youngest boy was reading the KJV aloud to me at the age of 5, his mother having worked with him for a couple of weeks while I was abroad on a trip. When he was 17, he began working on a fantasy novel of his own, which for various reasons got set aside but .
Excerpt from "The Legacy of a Child", by Michael DeSantis
As they got to the outskirts of town a light rain had just begun to fall. They went straight to the town’s only inn and were met by a young man, no older than seventeen. “There you are, Tim”, said Alden's mother, and handed over the donkey's reins to the young man. Timothy Alme was a unique sight in this small corner of the kingdom of Alroon. Here in the outlands all the boys had black, or very brown hair, and most were of average height with a thick build; Tim was the exception. At six feet and three inches he towered over most of the men in the village, and his lanky shock of blonde hair was an eye-opener for visitors from nearby towns. If this wasn’t enough to make him and oddity, he was so skinny he weighed less than many of the village boys two or three years younger than him. And yet, he was always able to manage even the largest and most unruly of the horses brought to the inn.
“After you unload him brush him down would you?”, quipped Alden’s mother, “There's a good lad.” “Master Gillin is inside if you wish to receive your payment”, Tim responded. "Thank you Tim." With that Alden followed his mother into the inn. As he entered he glanced up to the weatherworn sign above the door. The sign read “The Dancing Pig” and, fittingly, there was a faded depiction of a pig dancing jovially below the script.
Alden brushed the wetness out of his hair as he entered the building and shook off his jacket. It was quite warm inside, with two hearths blazing, one on each end of the common room. After folding his jacket under his arm Alden ran to catch up with his mother, nodding and smiling to the patrons seated at the many tables spaced across the room. He recognized most of them, and had known many of them all his eleven years of life.
Alden caught up to his mother just as she reached the bar in the back of the common room. The innkeeper greeted her. “Hello Marinnae, how was the walk today? Not too cold I hope.” Alden hopped onto a stool beside his mother and listened to the innkeeper talk to his mother about trifles, not because they enjoyed it, but because it was common courtesy in that part of the world to begin conversations with small talk. Alden regarded the man as he stood there nodding and grunting, with a rag in one hand and an empty ale mug in the other. The innkeeper was old, the oldest man that Alden had ever known. He had owned the inn ever since Alden’s parents had been children. Alden’s father had told him that Master Gillin had been fat and jolly back then, but it was hard for Alden to imagine the man as either fat, or jolly. As far as Alden knew, Master Gillin had owned the inn ever since the beginning of time, and would still be there when the last mountain fell. He was a wiry old man, skinny, balding, and gray, and there seemed to be a continuous frown etched into his stone-like face. But anyone who knew the old innkeeper even a little knew that he was a kind-hearted man. Sometimes he could be seen at night, putting out scraps of meat for the stray hounds that lived in the woods outside of town. And many times he would “forget” to charge some of the poorer inhabitants of the town when they came in for a meal.
Copyright 2002-2008, Michael DeSantis
Not bad for a 17-year-old. And the story was darn captivating, too - He put out the Prolog and Chapter 1, and I hung around with bated breath waiting for more to appear, because I wanted to see what happened.
The point of all this is that Mike was a voracious reader. He sought out Moby Dick by himself and enjoyed it, and Melville is not easy for many people far older than he. But you can't raise children on a diet of video games, using the TV as a babysitter, and expect them to put together a coherent sentence.
So while I understand your frustration and agree that there is much to be done, I posit that more needs to be done in homes long before the rug rats ever get inside a classroom. That's where the appreciation for the beauty of language begins. I for one am grateful that I can pick up a piece of writing by the likes of Eudora Welty or Walter van Tilburg Clark and be moved to tears as much by the beauty of the linguistic craftsmanship as by the tale itself...
torakiyoshi on the functional illiteracy of so many students in America.The complete absence of writing skills has just as much to do with a lack of global Weltanschauung as it does to poor teaching skills within the English classroom. The foundation of good writing is a hunger for knowledge and expansive, voracious, eclectic reading. We emulate that which we know and appreciate.
When our children were little, we would make at least three trips to the library per week, and bring back 20 books or so each time. My youngest boy was reading the KJV aloud to me at the age of 5, his mother having worked with him for a couple of weeks while I was abroad on a trip. When he was 17, he began working on a fantasy novel of his own, which for various reasons got set aside but .
Excerpt from "The Legacy of a Child", by Michael DeSantis
As they got to the outskirts of town a light rain had just begun to fall. They went straight to the town’s only inn and were met by a young man, no older than seventeen. “There you are, Tim”, said Alden's mother, and handed over the donkey's reins to the young man. Timothy Alme was a unique sight in this small corner of the kingdom of Alroon. Here in the outlands all the boys had black, or very brown hair, and most were of average height with a thick build; Tim was the exception. At six feet and three inches he towered over most of the men in the village, and his lanky shock of blonde hair was an eye-opener for visitors from nearby towns. If this wasn’t enough to make him and oddity, he was so skinny he weighed less than many of the village boys two or three years younger than him. And yet, he was always able to manage even the largest and most unruly of the horses brought to the inn.
“After you unload him brush him down would you?”, quipped Alden’s mother, “There's a good lad.” “Master Gillin is inside if you wish to receive your payment”, Tim responded. "Thank you Tim." With that Alden followed his mother into the inn. As he entered he glanced up to the weatherworn sign above the door. The sign read “The Dancing Pig” and, fittingly, there was a faded depiction of a pig dancing jovially below the script.
Alden brushed the wetness out of his hair as he entered the building and shook off his jacket. It was quite warm inside, with two hearths blazing, one on each end of the common room. After folding his jacket under his arm Alden ran to catch up with his mother, nodding and smiling to the patrons seated at the many tables spaced across the room. He recognized most of them, and had known many of them all his eleven years of life.
Alden caught up to his mother just as she reached the bar in the back of the common room. The innkeeper greeted her. “Hello Marinnae, how was the walk today? Not too cold I hope.” Alden hopped onto a stool beside his mother and listened to the innkeeper talk to his mother about trifles, not because they enjoyed it, but because it was common courtesy in that part of the world to begin conversations with small talk. Alden regarded the man as he stood there nodding and grunting, with a rag in one hand and an empty ale mug in the other. The innkeeper was old, the oldest man that Alden had ever known. He had owned the inn ever since Alden’s parents had been children. Alden’s father had told him that Master Gillin had been fat and jolly back then, but it was hard for Alden to imagine the man as either fat, or jolly. As far as Alden knew, Master Gillin had owned the inn ever since the beginning of time, and would still be there when the last mountain fell. He was a wiry old man, skinny, balding, and gray, and there seemed to be a continuous frown etched into his stone-like face. But anyone who knew the old innkeeper even a little knew that he was a kind-hearted man. Sometimes he could be seen at night, putting out scraps of meat for the stray hounds that lived in the woods outside of town. And many times he would “forget” to charge some of the poorer inhabitants of the town when they came in for a meal.
Copyright 2002-2008, Michael DeSantis
Not bad for a 17-year-old. And the story was darn captivating, too - He put out the Prolog and Chapter 1, and I hung around with bated breath waiting for more to appear, because I wanted to see what happened.
The point of all this is that Mike was a voracious reader. He sought out Moby Dick by himself and enjoyed it, and Melville is not easy for many people far older than he. But you can't raise children on a diet of video games, using the TV as a babysitter, and expect them to put together a coherent sentence.
So while I understand your frustration and agree that there is much to be done, I posit that more needs to be done in homes long before the rug rats ever get inside a classroom. That's where the appreciation for the beauty of language begins. I for one am grateful that I can pick up a piece of writing by the likes of Eudora Welty or Walter van Tilburg Clark and be moved to tears as much by the beauty of the linguistic craftsmanship as by the tale itself...
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 01:56 am (UTC)Before any improvements can take place in home education, we need to figure out how we created these 'parents' and how we can stop.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 03:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 03:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 04:07 am (UTC)I think we can also place part of the blame squarely on SMS and instant messaging. The writing of most students carries with it, even when they use actual words, the fragmented distortions of people used to sending one line at a time, even when they are presenting a lengthy thought.
-=TK
PS: I'm going to make the entry public, if you would like to link it.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 11:16 am (UTC)True, and alas, this is perhaps the most difficult tangible to address... for how else can we within the confines of our ostensibly free society...? :/
How, other than by stirring inspiration and motivation as a society itself, as a community, as a Whole Nation.
We must have an identity that encircles all our diversity, and sparks the yearning to excel... rather than a compliance to merely conform... to the lowest common denominators. :/
no subject
Date: 2008-10-27 11:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-10-28 08:58 am (UTC)The battle is nearly insurmountable... and yet tides have been known to turn... and any inroads you/we can make could lead to the moment of ignition and the fulfillment of hope ^v^
*hugs*