tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post1644106425678227682..comments2024-03-28T15:01:21.285-04:00Comments on SleuthSayers: Voice in WaxLeigh Lundinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07921276795499571578noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-84906543797975187182016-04-10T21:56:25.401-04:002016-04-10T21:56:25.401-04:00Dixon, it sounds like the modern public school def...Dixon, it sounds like the modern public school definition of voice is what some people call ‘authenticity’. We’ve even seen examples where kids plagiarized a work but it wasn’t seen as stealing because of the ‘authenticity’ of their ‘voice’.<br /><br />Using voice in a different context, I admire that you write for kids. You have ‘that voice’ and that’s so cool I envy it. By the way, what do your kids think when you appear in Boy’s Life?Leigh Lundinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07921276795499571578noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-28631888004898084222016-04-08T17:23:24.440-04:002016-04-08T17:23:24.440-04:00Paul, I'm as concerned as you are, if not more...Paul, I'm as concerned as you are, if not more so. Personally, I think voice is a tricky thing to understand, let alone teach. When I learned, several years back, that kids in public schools were being GRADED ON their "use of voice" in writing, down to the second or third grade-level, I was shocked. <br /><br />I can still remember, as a senior in high school, when a girl in my Honors English class received an A+ on a paper she thought she'd get a C or D on. When our teacher handed her essay back, he watched her amazed face and laughed. "You don't know why you got an A+, do you?" he asked. "It's because you accomplished one of the most difficult tasks in the mastery of essay writing: You used voice properly. I LOVED your paper!" <br /><br />That was my introduction to 'voice' at the age of 17 or 18, though I wouldn't come to even a rudimentary grasp of it for many more years. Why we're confusing little kids, who are still learning to spell and punctuate, by saddling them with demands for 'voice' in their writing, is beyond me.Dixon Hillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11220791609338404147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-35809081483162200852016-04-08T17:08:11.269-04:002016-04-08T17:08:11.269-04:00Sorry, Anon. The heels and toes of Jump Boots are...Sorry, Anon. The heels and toes of Jump Boots are built-up with an extra layer of hard leather, supposedly to help support the ankles and the "ball of the foot" when a paratrooper makes his/her "parachute landing fall" (otherwise known as a "P.L.F."). One side affect is that the built-up hard leather "headlights and taillights" tend to remain wrinkle-free, providing an unbroken surface that's easy to put a mirror shine into. The soft leather of the rest of the boot is considerably more difficult to polish to such a reflective finish.<br /><br />I really like Janice and Eve's idea of comparing wildly contrasting writing styles. I did some of that with my older kids, but not nearly to such a divergent extent. I'll have to try it, when I get the chance. I sort of touched on it when my youngest son and I were taking turns reading a Jim Chee and Joe Leaphorn mystery aloud. My son was frustrated by the manner in which Tony Hillerman painted his scenes: using an oblique approach that seemingly stepped sideways, straight into the center of the location/action being described. Initially, this approach confused Quentin, when he read them, until I read the same scenes back to him. We then discussed the writing style in some of the books he and his friends had been passing around, so we could discuss the difference in style, and why it was used (i.e.: a more direct and straight forward approach to scene-setting in youth or YA novels, compared to Hillerman's oblique aproach in an adult novel), which also served as a nice lesson in "Don't overlook the punctuation in a sentence or paragraph, buddy. It's there for a reason."Dixon Hillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11220791609338404147noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-85893231922095827962016-04-08T12:21:21.499-04:002016-04-08T12:21:21.499-04:00This is awesome! But I have to ask (feeling like I...This is awesome! But I have to ask (feeling like I'm taking bait here): what's the built-up toe and heel about on the jump boot, that we were asked to notice? Do you mean on the sole? Or where it's been waxed?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-80653216782067277062016-04-08T10:33:29.339-04:002016-04-08T10:33:29.339-04:00What a GREAT lesson!
And Janice - I think that&#...What a GREAT lesson! <br />And Janice - I think that's a great idea, putting Spillane and Austen in the same lesson, with maybe a little Hunter S. Thompson just to show how weird things can get.Eve Fisherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03015761600962360110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-81056757278741025872016-04-08T07:45:23.478-04:002016-04-08T07:45:23.478-04:00A good lesson and you wind up with polished boots,...A good lesson and you wind up with polished boots, too.<br />I think the difficulty in teaching any stylistic concept is that too often the samples are too close in tone, voice, whatever. Now if you get Mickey Spillane in one paragraph and Jane Austen in another, you know what you are getting. janice lawnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3119105822589181967.post-10152276911020908172016-04-08T05:38:54.574-04:002016-04-08T05:38:54.574-04:00I like your method, Dixon, sort of the "Mr. M...I like your method, Dixon, sort of the "Mr. Miyagi" way to teach. But so much of the the rest of what you said about the teachers not being able to explain it and things along those lines I find more than scary for the future.Paul D. Markshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15466234708772287399noreply@blogger.com