Powered by Twitter Tools
Tags: Comments Off
Thanks to the Washington Post for this shout-out:
Susan Wise Bauer’s The Art of the Public Grovel: Sexual Sin and Public Confession in America (2008) should be required reading. (In fact, anyone seeking public office might want to order a copy pronto.)
Whenever I check the news and find that yet another politician has been forced to own up to stepping out, I brace myself for the phone to ring. If you want job security, turn into an expert on public scandal.
Tags: Comments Off
Powered by Twitter Tools
Tags: 5 Comments
We just put this information up at the Well-Trained Mind site, so I thought I’d post it here as well…for anyone who might be interested.
The Complete Writer Weekend Workshop
A seminar for parents and students
Peace Hill
18021 The Glebe Lane
Charles City, Virginia
Friday, Feb. 10, 4 PM – Saturday, Feb. 11, 5:30 PM
Registration opens 11AM, Monday, December 5th.
Sponsored by Peace Hill Press
Registration fee: $35 per family
These sessions are intended for both parents and students. If you’d like us to consider including your student in one of the hands-on sessions taught by Susan, please contact us with the student’s name, age, overall grade level (more or less), and a brief explanation of the student’s writing ability, including any particular challenges.
Sessions will be taped for inclusion in a DVD lecture series. Attendees will be asked to sign a release form allowing them to appear on the DVD. If you register, we ask that you be willing to sign this form.
Local lodging options and information here. Williamsburg lodging options and information here. (25-40 minutes away)
A list of local restaurants can be found here (Charles City) and here (Providence Forge). (The options are few. This is farm country.)
Picnic dinners for Friday and box lunches for Saturday are available for an additional fee; please contact us for details.
SPACE IS LIMITED!
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
FRIDAY
4-5:30 PM Overview: Why Writing Programs Fail
An overall plan for producing good writers at home. We will cover how to teach the skills of writing sequentially, by guiding your student through a simple progression (copying, dictation, narration, summarizing, outlining, short critical essays, long critical essays, research paper) that develops both writing and thinking skills in a systematic manner. Includes suggestions on how to use these writing and thinking skills in every area of the curriculum.
5:30-7 Dinner break
7-8:30 Writing With Ease: The First Stage
Elementary Writing
This workshop focuses on the most foundational skills of writing: putting ideas into words, putting words on the page, and how to bring those two skills together. Includes a specific plan for developing these skills through copywork, dictation, and narration across the curriculum, as well as step-by-step guidance in how to dictate/narrate. Common (and not so common) difficulties are also addressed. Recommended for those teaching all K-6 students, as well as for those teaching older students who are reluctant writers.
SATURDAY
9-9:45 AM Dictation and Narration: A Demonstration
Susan will demonstrate dictatation and narration with elementary students. If you’d like your student to participate, please contact us.
9:45-10 AM Coffee Break
10-11:30 Writing With Skill: The Second Stage
Logic-Stage Writing
Expanding on the principles presented in “A Plan for Teaching Writing,” this workshop offers very specific guidance in how to teach middle grade (logic-stage) students the skills of constructing an argument, outlining and writing from an outline. Includes training in outlining, writing from an outline, basic Socratic dialogue, and evaluation and grading. Essential for those teaching all 5th to 8th grade students; since written argumentation is the basis of high school writing, this seminar is also highly recommended for those teaching high school students. Students in grades 5-12 are encouraged to attend.
11:30-11:45 Break
11:45-12:45 Middle Grade Master Class
Susan will walk middle-grade students through the process of organizing, writing, and proofreading a brief composition. If you’d like your student to participate, please contact us. Students must be willing to prepare ahead of time.
12:45-2 Lunch Break
2-3:30 Writing With Style: The Third Stage
High School Writing
Expanding on the principles presented in “A Plan for Teaching Writing,” this seminar covers all of the types of writing that high school students should learn before entering the freshman year of college: response papers, summaries, and critical essays across the curriculum. Attendance at “Focus on the Middle Grades” seminar is highly recommended. Students in grades 8-12 are encouraged to attend.
3:30-4 Tea Break
4-5:30 High School Master Class
Susan will teach a selected topic to high school students and help them to form a response paper. If you’d like your student to participate, please contact us. Students must be willing to prepare ahead of time.
5:30 Closing Thoughts (And Coffee for the Road)
Tags: Comments Off
Powered by Twitter Tools
Tags: 5 Comments
I’ve just posted my 2012 speaking schedule online right here. So if you’d like to come say hello in person any time over the next year, maybe you can choose one of these fine venues.
I’m contemplating taking a break from speaking in 2013, by the way, so THIS MIGHT BE YOUR LAST CHANCE for a while. (Experimenting here to find out if creating scarcity will produce a huge swell of additional interest and activity. Well…okay, a swell. Or a bump.)
As you’ve probably noticed from the paucity of blog entries, I’ve been writing hard; most of my creative energy at the moment is going into the History of the Renaissance World. But I should have some interesting updates for you before too long.
Promise.
Tags: 1 Comment
Powered by Twitter Tools
Tags: 2 Comments
Powered by Twitter Tools
Tags: Comments Off
Powered by Twitter Tools
Tags: Comments Off
Polishing up a couple of early chapters in Volume 3 of the History of the World, I ran across one of my favorite minor historical characters. You can’t get much more colorfully off-the-wall than Fulk the Black–the patriarch of the future Plantaganet line of English kings, no less.
Western Francia, like Germany, was a fragment of Charlemagne’s defunct eighth-century empire; unlike Germany, which had begun its journey towards a national identity under the guidance of Henry the Fowler in 919, Western Francia was a patchwork. Only the ring of territories right around Paris was known as France; the rest of Western Francia was governed by local noblemen, held loosely together by personal oaths of loyalty to the Capetian king.
The Count of Anjou was one of these noblemen: loyal in theory to the French throne, but a king in his own lands in all but name. He had inherited a massive estate that bordered Henry I’s Norman lands on one side, and the King of France’s royal holdings on the other. His power was largely due to the efforts of his great-grandfather Fulk the Black, a psychotically warlike aristocrat who had burned his wife, in her wedding dress, at the stake for adultery; fought a vicious war against his own son and then forced the defeated youth to put on a bridle and saddle and crawl on the ground in humiliation; and pillaged and robbed the surrounding lands at will. Fearing a justly-deserved hell, he had made a pilgrimage to Jerusalem in his old age, where he was rumored to have bitten off a piece of stone from the Holy Sepulchre with his own teeth so that he would have a relic to bring home.
Ow.
Tags: 1 Comment
Interesting piece here from a Harvard dean about what elite colleges are looking for.
I only have one question…
College counselors and admissions directors crowded a hotel conference room on Thursday afternoon, many sitting on the floor for want of enough chairs, as William Fitzsimmons, dean of admissions at Harvard, joined in a discussion on “The Ideal High School Graduate”…
Mr. Fitzsimmons called successful applicants to Harvard “good all-arounders – academically, extracirricularly and personally,” and he stressed the importance of demonstrating humanity and three-dimensionality in one’s college application. “I want to know, what is it this person does beside chew gum and produce good grades or scores?”
Was it Mr. Fitzsimmons or the New York Times that couldn’t spell “extracurricular”?
Tags: 2 Comments
Powered by Twitter Tools
Tags: 1 Comment
