Following Comments on NPR's story on Fish's new book on sentences

robert hill (toguf) wrote:

Teaching "kids" to write is very different from refining language to its best. Certainly, beginning writers need to feel a sense of fluency and momentum, an opportunity to say something that appeals or matters to them. However, one of the major differences between poetry, let's say, written by earnest teenagers and that of accomplished poets is in their language, not only in the Aristotle-approved metaphor-making but also in revelations of how language works. "Clarity" and "meaning," in and of themselves, can too readily become simplistic opinion; skilled attention to the way sentences and words actually work will always assist a writer toward saying more than s/he thought at first. It is no disrespect to a student's ideas or feelings to give what I consider a high compliment, "You make good sentences."

Sun Jan 30 2011 07:54:20 GMT-0500 (Eastern Standard Time)