Reading Like a Writer

Author: Francine Prose
Publisher: Union Books
ISBN: 1908526149
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 263

Book Description
In her entertaining and edifying New York Times bestseller, acclaimed author Francine Prose invites you to sit by her side and take a guided tour of the tools and tricks of the masters to discover why their work has endured. Written with passion, humour and wisdom, Reading Like a Writer will inspire readers to return to literature with a fresh eye and an eager heart – to take pleasure in the long and magnificent sentences of Philip Roth and the breathtaking paragraphs of Isaac Babel; to look to John le Carré for a lesson in how to advance plot through dialogue and to Flannery O’ Connor for the cunning use of the telling detail; to be inspired by Emily Brontë ’ s structural nuance and Charles Dickens’ s deceptively simple narrative techniques. Most importantly, Prose cautions readers to slow down and pay attention to words, the raw material out of which all literature is crafted, and reminds us that good writing comes out of good reading.

The Write to Read

Author: Lesley Roessing
Publisher: Corwin Press
ISBN: 1452273731
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 201

Book Description
Use reader response strategies to achieve Common Core goals in reading and in writing! Response journals—brief, personal writing in response to reading—can significantly improve reading comprehension. What′s more, when scaffolded over the year, reader response strategies promote engagement, build understanding of complex literary and informational text, and even help students provide supporting evidence in their writing—all goals of the Common Core. For educators eager to use reader response strategies, veteran teacher Lesley Roessing presents a unique, step-by-step approach that inspires thoughtful reading and skillful writing in Grades 5–12. Based on research and her own classroom experience, Roessing′s innovative writing exercises encourage students to read more deeply, develop questions, and participate actively in class. Beginning with simple response tasks and moving toward more complex assignments, the book provides a scaffolded curriculum for the full academic year. Developed for language arts and content area teachers, as well as literacy specialists, this resource includes: Examples of response journals for a wide range of genres, including fiction, nonfiction, poetry, and students′ personal reading Strategies for using reader response to guide classroom discussions, group work, book clubs, and journal writing at home Adaptations for students with diverse abilities Numerous classroom-ready templates and samples of student work Discover a well-structured writing curriculum that promotes confident learning and the joy of reading.

The Writer's Digest Handbook of Novel Writing

Author:
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780898798319
Category : Authorship
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
Contains thirty-seven articles drawn from the pages of "Writer's Digest" magazine, in which authors, editors, agents, and teachers offer advice on various aspects of novel-writing, discussing topics such as building plot skeletons, writing good dialogue, creating a book outline, and negotiating a contract.

Why I Write

Author: George Orwell
Publisher: Renard Press Ltd
ISBN: 1913724263
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 15

Book Description
George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

OBSERVE to UNMASK

Author: Pushpendra Mehta
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 128

Book Description
Readers' Favorite (5-Star Review): "Observe to Unmask: 100 Small Things to Know People Better by Pushpendra Mehta is a tidy little book with big, helpful insights into the human heart and psyche." "Pushpendra Mehta has written a must-read book for anyone on a quest to understand people better, including themselves, and benefit from these insights for a happier and more fulfilling life...Read this book - and learn from one of the best." - Stacey Chillemi, Founder of The Complete Herbal Guide, Writer, Huff Post and Thrive Global Pushpendra Mehta, writer, marketer, and mentor, has been an observer of human behavior all his life. Inspired by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's memorable fictional detective character, Sherlock Holmes, Pushpendra realized people drop subtle clues to their true nature, which is often hidden behind masks. The more he watched and studied, the better able he was to discern who people truly were. In 2019, he answered a question-"What small thing can tell you a lot about a person?"-that was posted on Quora, a popular question-and-answer website. His answer received over 1 million views. This unexpected response led him to write Observe to Unmask, in which he explains what we can learn about people based on their conversations (including social media posts), interests, behavior, emotions, thoughts, and more. Packed with intriguing insights, Observe to Unmask is useful in understanding not only the people in our personal and professional lives, but can act as a guide for self-reflection and improvement. Short and easy to read, it is a book you will turn to again and again, always finding something new and worthwhile. Observe to Unmask will sharpen your ability to draw conclusions quickly and accurately from the smallest observations. It will help you develop positive relationships or harmonious associations that work for you and make you happier; assist you in comprehending an individual's backstory; prevent you from being exploited, abused, manipulated, or lied to; aid you in distancing yourself from negative or toxic people, or avoiding them as much as possible.

How to Read Like a Writer

Author: Mike Bunn
Publisher: The Saylor Foundation
ISBN:
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 17

Book Description
When you Read Like a Writer (RLW) you work to identify some of the choices the author made so that you can better understand how such choices might arise in your own writing. The idea is to carefully examine the things you read, looking at the writerly techniques in the text in order to decide if you might want to adopt similar (or the same) techniques in your writing. You are reading to learn about writing. Instead of reading for content or to better understand the ideas in the writing (which you will automatically do to some degree anyway), you are trying to understand how the piece of writing was put together by the author and what you can learn about writing by reading a particular text. As you read in this way, you think about how the choices the author made and the techniques that he/she used are influencing your own responses as a reader. What is it about the way this text is written that makes you feel and respond the way you do?

Why Write?

Author: Mark Edmundson
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1632863065
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 289

Book Description
From one of America's great professors, author of Why Teach? and Why Read?--an inspiring exploration of the importance of writing well, for creators, educators, students, and anyone who writes. Why write when it sometimes feels that so few people really read--read as if their lives might be changed by what they're reading? Why write, when the world wants to be informed, not enlightened; to be entertained, not inspired? Writing is backbreaking, mindbreaking, lonely work. So why? Because writing, as celebrated professor Mark Edmundson explains, is one of the greatest human goods. Real writing can do what critic R. P. Blackmur said it could: add to the stock of available reality. Writing teaches us to think; it can bring our minds to birth. And once we're at home with words, there are few more pleasurable human activities than writing. Because this is something he believes everyone ought to know, Edmundson offers us Why Write?, essential reading--both practical and inspiring--for anyone who yearns to be a writer, anyone who simply needs to know how to get an idea across, and anyone in between--in short, everyone.

Several Short Sentences About Writing

Author: Verlyn Klinkenborg
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0307279413
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 226

Book Description
An indispensable and distinctive book that will help anyone who wants to write, write better, or have a clearer understanding of what it means for them to be writing, from widely admired writer and teacher Verlyn Klinkenborg. Klinkenborg believes that most of our received wisdom about how writing works is not only wrong but an obstacle to our ability to write. In Several Short Sentences About Writing, he sets out to help us unlearn that “wisdom”—about genius, about creativity, about writer’s block, topic sentences, and outline—and understand that writing is just as much about thinking, noticing, and learning what it means to be involved in the act of writing. There is no gospel, no orthodoxy, no dogma in this book. Instead it is a gathering of starting points in a journey toward lively, lucid, satisfying self-expression.

First We Read, Then We Write

Author: Robert D. Richardson
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
ISBN: 1587298422
Category : Reference
Languages : en
Pages : 113

Book Description
Writing was the central passion of Emerson’s life. While his thoughts on the craft are well developed in “The Poet,” “The American Scholar,” Nature, “Goethe,” and “Persian Poetry,” less well known are the many pages in his private journals devoted to the relationship between writing and reading. Here, for the first time, is the Concord Sage’s energetic, exuberant, and unconventional advice on the idea of writing, focused and distilled by the preeminent Emerson biographer at work today. Emerson advised that “the way to write is to throw your body at the mark when your arrows are spent.” First We Read, Then We Write contains numerous such surprises—from “every word we speak is million-faced” to “talent alone cannot make a writer”—but it is no mere collection of aphorisms and exhortations. Instead, in Robert Richardson’s hands, the biographical and historical context in which Emerson worked becomes clear. Emerson’s advice grew from his personal experience; in practically every moment of his adult life he was either preparing to write, trying to write, or writing. Richardson shows us an Emerson who is no granite bust but instead is a fully fleshed, creative person disarmingly willing to confront his own failures. Emerson urges his readers to try anything—strategies, tricks, makeshifts—speaking not only of the nuts and bolts of writing but also of the grain and sinew of his determination. Whether a writer by trade or a novice, every reader will find something to treasure in this volume. Fearlessly wrestling with “the birthing stage of art,” Emerson’s counsel on being a reader and writer will be read and reread for years to come.

The Faraway Nearby

Author: Rebecca Solnit
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1101622776
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 215

Book Description
A New York Times Notable Book Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award A personal, lyrical narrative about storytelling and empathy, from the author of Orwell's Roses Apricots. Her mother's disintegrating memory. An invitation to Iceland. Illness. These are Rebecca Solnit's raw materials, but The Faraway Nearby goes beyond her own life, as she spirals out into the stories she heard and read—from fairy tales to Mary Shelley's Frankenstein—that helped her navigate her difficult passge. Solnit takes us into the lives of others—an arctic cannibal, the young Che Guevara among the leprosy afflicted, a blues musician, an Icelandic artist and her labyrinth—to understand warmth and coldness, kindness and imagination, decay and transformation, making art and making self. This captivating, exquisitely written exploration of the forces that connect us and the way we tell our stories is a tour de force of association, a marvelous Russian doll of a book that is a fitting companion to Solnit's much-loved A Field Guide to Getting Lost.