Book Review

A book entitled A Very Good Place to Start beckoned intriguingly from the pile offered by Dr. Westcott to be critiqued for Carolina English Teacher. Its subtitle proved more demanding of attention: Approaches to Teaching Writing and Literature in Secondary School. After signing up to review this collection of essays, I discovered that its editor and contributors were all teachers from Phillips Academy. At that point, I had misgivings as to the appropriateness of their finds for public school application. For the most part, I was pleased to discover that the strategies proffered could be adapted for my classroom. As with any publication with recommendations for classroom use, the key word here is "adapted."

If only one essay published in this slender volume were read, namely "Read ‘Em and Weep" by Peter A. Gilbert, obtaining this book would have been worth the while. Modeling is the strategy explored by Mr. Gilbert. He recommends using recordings of and copies of famous speeches such as "The Gettysburg Address," speeches by Roosevelt and Churchill, the inaugural speech or Berlin speeches of President Kennedy, Senator Edward Kennedy's tribute to his slain brother Bobby, and various speeches by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. After listening to appreciate the cadence and hear the emphasis in these pieces, students can dissect them to comprehend their style. One unique suggestion was to cut the models into sentences, mix them up, and ask students to give them order. Of course, the culminating activity for the students would be the writing of their own essays or speeches using the style which they had examined.

In "Meeting the Author," Tom McGraw presents his approach to the research paper for English classes. A three part approach includes first an account of an author's life followed by a review of criticism written by the scholars. Finally, the research paper closely examines a single writing by the author chosen and relates it to both the author's life and the criticism reviewed. I felt my own research teaching was greatly validated by this essay since its approach is very similar to my own treatment of the term paper.

Subsequent essays in the book dealt with ways to incorporate the "real" world into classroom writing through a method of inquiry and problem solving. Much of the material discussed would highly complement the Total Quality Transformation currently touted by national educators. This was especially true of "Marking Papers" by Paul Kalkstein and "Soaking Students in the Language of Writing" by editor Craig Thorn. The information from these essays is useful in the development of portfolio assessment.

A section of the book entitled "Introductory Literature Courses" offers ideas by three authors on how to use literature as a springboard for writing. Instead of the traditional analysis, they offer such techniques as exploring the "real" reader and expressing that reception; employing Kinneavy's triangle to combine expressive, referential, literary, and persuasive discourse in responding to literature; and learning to appreciate and analyze poetry by first reading and writing haiku. In the final essay of this section, Craig Thorn reveals how both the New Criticism and prose models can be enhanced if the student creates literature and adds the dimension of personalizing that literature.

As a final section, several essays introduce ways to create advanced writing and literature courses. Such avenues as the teaching of films and film writing, autobiographical writing, thematic courses, and a combination of acting and writing are described. The idea of thematic units heralds the future since that is the format chosen and produced by most textbook companies at this time. Some of the themes suggested by editor Thorn in the final essay of the book include America's poor, the American family, outcasts, Americans at war, and gender in American society. He suggests literary works that may be conducive to these themes, also.

In spite of its having been compiled from the writings of an elite private school faculty, this collection of essays has much to offer any secondary English teacher, whether in a private or a public school. Many of its contributors have participated in the Bread Loaf Experience from which they derived much inspiration. In the words of Editor Thorn, "Any group of teachers can produce a useful, ongoing colloquy about composition. The first step is simple: recognize what goes on between you and your students as the best place to start."

Ina Claire Bryant
Darlington High School
Darlington, SC