First Day Of School
Nearly, finally here. From the NY Times , a cool look at first day of school throughout the decades. A great article from Longreads about writing from Mary Karr who has put forth two memoirs. Ms. Karr teaches her grad students using a technique that I tried years ago at Whittier Elementary with a class of 5th graders. You pretend you are going to talk about writing, have a co-conspirator burst in the room and argue with you and then... tell the kids to write exactly what they heard and saw. (I hit the button on a CD player and played the theme from "Mission Impossible" to set the mood after my compatriot left the room.) The kids thought it funny and it did get them thinking about writing and memory . From Ms Karr's piece: So a single image can split open the hard seed of the past, and soon memory pours forth from every direction, sprouting its vines and flowers up around you till the old garden’s taken shape in all its fragrant glory The Nation...