School

[Keith Davis]

A musician friend, a drummer, turned me on to Borges many years ago. Why do
you appreciate him? Probably for the same reasons; line construction,
world-creation, general weirdness and originality. Then there is the
non-fiction, displaying the wide-range of his thinking on different
subjects, but again, coming back to the beauty of expression.

Cheers.

On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 2:22 AM, Alex Colter <recoignishon at gmail.com> wrote:

> A-and, Keith, do tell us your thoughts on Borges. He is one of my
> favorites, though I have only been able to access him through Andrew
> Hurley's translation... sad I know... and I grew up so close to the Border,
> too...
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 1:20 AM, Alex Colter <recoignishon at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> Having graduated about five years ago I cannot say I learned anything
>> from High School... maybe a thing or two about girls that I promptly
>> forgot... mostly I taught myself how to read...
>> how to keep my dogeared copy of Gravity's Rainbow from the (un)watchful
>> eyes of the teacher...
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 10, 2012 at 1:08 AM, Brian Kempf <btkempf at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Having just graduated high school I may have a different perspective on
>>> this, but here's my two bits...
>>>
>>> When having writing assignments, we were given a rubric. We were
>>> expected to include all aspects of the rubric in our paper to get the most
>>> points. From my memory, around 90% of possible points on most papers were
>>> about substance. How well did your paragraphs support your thesis
>>> statement? How many sources did you use? Many of my peers would hit high
>>> marks in these categories. Style (syntax, grammar, spelling), however,
>>> made up only about 5-10% of the possible amount of points. Occasionally my
>>> friends and I would proofread each other's papers. They would hit all of
>>> major items they need to cover and much more, but sentences would be
>>> run-on's, "then" and "than" were used interchangeably, and how the message
>>> was being communicated - as opposed to *what* the message was that was
>>> being communicated - was neglected.
>>>
>>> In my high school experience (and I would be interested in hearing other
>>> perspectives on this), we are not taught how to write. We are taught about
>>> having supporting paragraphs, vocabulary, similes and metaphors, etc. but
>>> not how to combine these elements into making good writing. That being
>>> said, I thought that my HS's English department was outstanding and
>>> inspired me to take English as a major in college. But for those who don't
>>> care about the subject, they only learn how to follow directions to get
>>> from point A to point B. But that is only half of the battle. As the cliche
>>> goes, "it's the journey, not the destination". This applies to writing,
>>> where what you say is equally, if not more important than how you say it.
>>>
>>> As an anecdote, when my mom went back to college to take classes in
>>> early childhood education, she was shocked that her professor had to
>>> specifically tell students that "texting language in papers" was not
>>> allowed.
>>>
>>> B.K.
>>>
>>> On Aug 9, 2012, at 11:08 PM, Keith Davis <kbob42 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>> Tomorrow is the final day of summer session at Furman, where I teach
>>> Jazz Piano.
>>> This summer I've been teaching Intro to Jazz, my first time teaching a
>>> class other than a workshop
>>> or Taiji class. It has been very gratifying, until time to read the
>>> research papers. These kids
>>> obviously did the research, but the writing, for the most part, is
>>> horrible. I found myself correcting
>>> grammar and syntax, until deciding that was not my job in this course.
>>>
>>> I'm obviously no Mr. P, but these kids, for the most part, don't even
>>> know how to write proper sentences
>>> or separate thoughts into paragraphs. It is a real eye-opener, and not
>>> in a good way.
>>>
>>> Anyway, I'll be finishing M & D tonight, and then treating myself to
>>> some Borges, so, onward...
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> www.innergroovemusic.com
>>>
>>>
>>
>


-- 
www.innergroovemusic.com
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