Today’s post covers three soon-to-be-published books which deal
with reading and writing. In this important area, we can learn from personal
experience, from new neuroscience research findings, and from strong role models. That is what these books respectively attempt,
but in each case, I found myself repeatedly asking, “Who is the intended audience
here?”
The first book, A Comedy and A Tragedy by
Travis Hugh Culley, is a memoir which tells the story of Culley’s many struggles.
His ultimate success came through acting,
reading plays, and writing about his experiences. The cover is certainly
appealing, but I found the text too dense for our reluctant readers. (July 14,
2015 by Random House/Ballantine). As an
educator, I felt compassion for Culley as a misunderstood student, some curiosity
about his coping strategies, and mainly frustration at not seeing more
suggestions on how teachers could help to counterbalance his extremely dysfunctional
family.
The Reader’s Brain: How Neuroscience Can Make You a
Better Writer does indeed focus on writing (July 31, 2015 by Cambridge
University Press). The author, Yellowlees Douglas, has been an instructor and
consultant in this discipline for years.
As a result, it is a little intimidating to write this review. I found both
helpful suggestions and some over-simplified direction like this “Expert Tip”: “start sentences with a subject and follow
with a verb.” Douglas argues that we teach about making an argument and about
correct grammar, but not so much about a “middle ground” involving these 5C’s: clarity, continuity, coherence, concision, and
cadence.
Overall, the digital text was difficult to navigate and the
author added so many examples that I often had trouble distilling his main
point. I suggest consulting a print copy where specific chapters and other
highlights are more easily distinguished in order to better implement Douglas’
advice for writing non-fiction. Reviewing The Reader’s Brain led
me to other texts such as Wired for Story by Cron which offers practical
guidance for writing fiction and could be valuable for some of our Senior
English electives.
Creative Successful Dyslexic is edited by Margaret
Rooke and profiles a series of entrepreneurs (e.g., Sir Richard Branson), entertainers,
and sports figures who are dyslexic (Sept. 21, 2015 by Jessica Kingsley Publishers).
Having role models is always helpful, but those are almost all British and
therefore would be less well-known to our students.
In fact, two of the above titles are from England where
traditionally it seems there is much more interest and timely research on
reading and literacy. Educators looking
for a US perspective will recognize the name of Sally Shaywitz (Overcoming
Dyslexia, 2003) who appears in this short video stressing the importance of
a caring educator:
To learn more, visit the Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity and its links for parents and educators. Other helpful sources of information include:
- LDOnline: an educator’s guide to learning disabilities with a helpful newsletter;
- International Literacy Association which publishes several EXCELLENT academic journals
- Reading Rockets on Dyslexia and the Brain
- Purdue’s OWL and the recent list of free writing classes (scroll down) complied by Mashable
- Understood website which lists personal stories dealing with learning and attention issues
Added 7/12: "The Writing Assignment that Changes Lives" from NPR
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