[Xmca-l] Re: Eighth Grade Reading and Paradise Lost

[Anthony Barra]

Same! But it was a Welcome Change of Pace.

I'll say this: helping kids see enjambment, as a tool poets use and one
they too can use, makes as big a difference as anything else I show them.
And with older kids, looking at interrupted clauses in sonnets is the
biggest bang for their buck.

Cool tip David, thanks


On Wednesday, June 10, 2020, Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net> wrote:

> So what is your proposal, David? I tried reading your message vertically,
> then backwards, and still found myself lost.
>
> Martin
>
>
> On Jun 10, 2020, at 8:09 PM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Anthony--
>
> I have a compromise for you. You are finding it hard to quit the "My
> Hometown Minneapolis" thread, and you are, will-he nil-he, doing exactly
> what you once condemned Ulvi for doing (posting links instead of thoughts).
>
> Here's what I propose. The other day I was teaching READING. No, they
> weren't eighth graders--they were Korean undergraduates, and I was teaching
> Milton's Paradise Lost. Needless to say, the kids were finding it tough
> going.
>
> I think I know why. If you take eighth graders WRITING poetry, a sentence
> usually maps onto a single prosodic line. For want of data (you really
> could help out here, you know), I give you:
>
> Roses are red.
> Violets are blue.
> Sugar is sweet.
> . ....
>
> Each line is a sentence, a simple major clause: subject, verb, object.
> Milton doesn't do that: his first sentence ("Of man's disobedience...") is
> sixteen lines long. So he  completely decouples the line from the clause.
>
> Or does he? Milton loves acrostics (which is even more amazing when you
> realize he's stone blind when he's writing this stuff)--according to
> Melanie Phaal (not, I am almost sure, her real name), you find stuff like
> this:
>
> ;;;who rather double honour gain
> From his surmise proved false; find peace within,
> Favour from Heaven, our witness, from the event.
> And what is faith, love, virtue, unassayed
> Alone, without exteriour help sustained?
> Let us not then suspect our happy state
> Left so imperfect by the Maker wise,
> As not secure to single or combined.
> Frail is our happiness, if this be so,
>
> Get it? You don't read it horizontally. You read it vertically, like a
> Korean pub sign: FFAALL  (and "FALL" if you read it from the bottom up.
> Double honor gained indeed....
>
> That got me thinking. Alot of Paradise Lost becomes easier when you realie
> that it's syntax is vertical, like a Korean or a Chinese crossword. Milton
> puts  the subject in one line, the verb in the next, and the object in the
> last.
>
> No light, but rather darkness visible
> Served only to discover sights of woe
> Regions of sorrow, doleful shades...
>
> The problem is that when I teach this technique, I find that the kids
> ignore it. A few years ago, there was a serious attempt to teach reading as
> AUTONOMY--people like R.R. Day and Julian Bamford (influenced by Stephen
> Krashen) wanted most reading to take place outside class, "extensively".
> But this never really caught on, partly because we don't really know what
> techniques to teach (besides "skimming and scanning", i.e. reading minus
> comprehension). As usual, though, we tend to blame our own ignorance on the
> kids (as I did in the first sentence of this paragraph).
>
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
>
> New Article: Ruqaiya Hasan, in memoriam: A manual and a manifesto.
> Outlines, Spring 2020
> https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!QCdXK65ueFPJ51giwmeqcZR8xdxj9bN-wA9Mo0XCOf6R92tDTb7ZfLg4aqXDakWbHBVdKA$ 
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://tidsskrift.dk/outlines/article/view/116238__;!!Mih3wA!XivomlsMRmzsPNhtZ107JW5GufxDQl52tecyALUtAf6cPg3yuDGwm0SsEv91-tvMsEeyJQ$>
> New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: *L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works* *Volume
> One: Foundations of Pedology*"
>  https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!QCdXK65ueFPJ51giwmeqcZR8xdxj9bN-wA9Mo0XCOf6R92tDTb7ZfLg4aqXDakVMVzYqPg$ 
>
> <https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270__;!!Mih3wA!XivomlsMRmzsPNhtZ107JW5GufxDQl52tecyALUtAf6cPg3yuDGwm0SsEv91-tuGXBvkMg$>
>
>
>
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