Literature, Language, and History 1

This may be the most varied—to the point of confusion, perhaps—category in InterestedKids. To a degree this category is something of a catch-all for suggestions that also relate to topics like civic engagement but also geography and rhetoric. This is also where general “educational activities” live.

In an idea-driven society words are the coin of the realm. What the College Board used to refer to a “verbal aptitude” and what educator and originator of the Theory of Multiple Intelligences Howard Gardner calls “Linguistic Intelligence” is all about fluency with words, language, and the way these can convey complex ideas.

It’s a given that truly great students are often also great and voracious readers, kids who inhale words and the ideas that go with them. They also tend to be kids who can listen eagerly and carefully to complex conversations and presentations. Many are also fluid writers for whom turning their own ideas into words, sentences, and stories is as much a part of life as breathing.

Most educators will tell you that the best preparation for almost anything in the academic sphere—and for life in the Information Age—is read, read, read!

To which we would add: Listen, listen, listen! and Write, write, write!

This section is also about the art of looking around and noticing things about the world one inhabits. As a parent and as a teacher I have always tried hard to encourage the young people in my world to be observant.

And perhaps above all: See, see, see!

LL&H 1. Listen to an entire episode of This American Life on National Public Radio and then e-mail your thoughts on the experience to someone.

Listening well is not quite a lost art, but ever since the Golden Age of Radio was done in by the television, good radio documentaries have been hard to find—except on public radio. This American Life has been a fixture on National Public Radio’s weekend schedule for years, and each week the show features three or four longish—10–30 minute—segments and often a few shorter ones on a particular theme. The themes and the segments can be sad, provocative, poignant, nostalgic, annoying, and frequently very funny, and the writing is intelligent and witty.

Sometimes the theme will not hold much interest for younger listeners, and occasionally the content requires a certain maturity, but more often than not the show’s appeal (part of which is the low-key narrative by creator Ira Glass) is considerable to anyone willing to give an attentive listen.

Since imitation is the highest form of flattery, perhaps the young listener could even imagine and create his or her own segment of an imagined This American Life show. It is even possible to submit segments to the show; guidelines can be found on the show’s website, www.thislife.org. All it takes is a voice recorder and a great story idea!

(ALSO: Civic and Community Engagement)

LL&H 2. Imagine getting hold of an RV and driving across the country. Send each of your teachers an illustrated email "postcard" from someplace interesting. Keep a journal. If the RV is too much, take a car and a tent. If cross-country is too much, visit a state or two that you’ve never been to. Don’t forget the postcards!

Not for the faint of heart or the short on resources, this was once the ne plus ultra of educational vacation ideas. Cross-country travel has been the iconic American experience since the days of the Forty-Niners, but in recent years the ease of air travel has induced more and more vacationers to eschew the highway and turn much of our nation into “fly-over” territory.

If the notion of RVing in an an imaginary Winnebago from sea to shining sea is too much—and those who would have to drive need a stout heart and a strong commitment to the enterprise—it is also possible to travel around a single region. Imagine car camping with tents and sleeping bags from campground to campground, a time-honored way for Americans to get around.

How you travel is a great deal less important than where you go, what you see, and above all how you look at and talk about what is observed. It is possible for a car full of people to travel many miles with its occupants contained within a cultural bubble impervious to outside influence, but a truly valuable journey, virtual or real, must be made with eyes turned outward and minds wide open. Begin by carefully and practically planning the journey, which should be a relatively democratic process, and make sure that dialogue continues as the trip takes place; journal-keeping is also encouraged. Rather than merely sightseeing, a trip of this sort should truly be (with a tip of the hat to the organization of this same name) an odyssey of the mind.

(ALSO: STEM, Civic and Community Engagement)

LL&H 3. Write a children’s book, illustrate it yourself, or ask a friend to help. Field test your book by reading to children of the right age; ask them for feedback, and make changes until you have a book that kids really like. Once you know have written something appealing, try to find someone to publish your book.
What was your (or your children’s) favorite children’s story? Do you still have a copy around? There is no better place to start imagining writing one’s own children’s book than by carefully examining the form and structure of another.

The secret to most great children’s books is that they combine a great simplicity of form—relatively few words to a page, short sentences, few characters—with a wonderful complexity or open-endedness. The book suggests or evokes rather than spelling out aspects of the character or the story. Goodnight, Moon, for example, provides a prop-filled setting but almost no context; the story could be about, and for, anyone, and thus nearly every child—and every parent—feels included in the narrative, even if the great green room does not look much like home.

The next Goodnight, Moon might be a bit much to hope for, but creating a storyline and illustrations that might entertain a young sibling, neighbor, or cousin is simply a great way to harness imaginative power. Which comes first, the pictures or the text, makes little difference, but the story should above all appeal to the writer, and if there are opportunities to introduce whimsy or humor—even irony—by all means take them, as even toddlers know a good joke when they hear it.

Reassure the young author that the illustrations do not have to look professional—even many published children’s books are a bit rough in the visual department, as evocative can be even more effective than precisely representational in the realm of children’s literature. An important physical characteristic for a children’s book is that it can be seen by the listener even as it is being read aloud—larger drawings are better than smaller ones, although some detail is always welcome.

The proof of the pudding, so to speak, will be the first time the story is shared with a young listener. Think of the first audiences as being like focus groups—gather feedback, and make changes as necessary, at least up to the limit of artistic integrity. A final, presentation copy can be made as a gift for a young friend, although the author may want to run off a color photocopy (although this can be expensive) to keep—or to submit to a publisher!

(ALSO: The Arts and Creative Expression; Service and Helping Others)

LL&H 4. Take an online "college level" course

This is probably a suggestion suitable to high school students, but in recent years there has been a proliferation of "massive open online courses," or MOOCs, that offer education in a myriad on subjects and topics, and that allow students to pace their own work and participation. Some even offer—sometimes for a fee, to be sure—"badges" or some other kind of credit acknowledgment for successful completion. Look to providers like Coursera, edX, FutureLearn, and Udacity for high quality programs. Some colleges and universities also offer MOOCs based on some of theiur own course offerings..

This should not be done for any other reason than that the student is interested in or curious about the subject matter. If indeed the course is part of a summer residential program, then it requires a serious commitment of time, energy, and intellectual curiosity—as well as money. The student needs to be ready to work hard to make the most of the opportunity.

This is the time for a strong, even stentorian, caveat: The world is full of ambitious high schoolers busily padding and polishing their c.v.’s by amassing college courses and summer programs set on college campuses. While such activities may have educational value for participants along with whatever luster they might add to a college application (and college admission offices are quite good at distinguishing expensive résumé-building from authentic learning), they are generally regarded by participants only as mildly—or more—distasteful rites of passage, a summer of nights spent fulfilling an obligation.

The kind of college course that will turn on an INTERESTED KID will be one in which the child is genuinely interested without its having any particular instrumental value in making the student look good; if a record of the course makes the curious student look curious, that is all right. Let the student really look for something that they regard as intellectually fun, even if it bears no relation to any category needing fulfillment in a list of graduation requirements. 

And let the student work hard because the material is engaging and not to earn yet another accolade. The thinking child will acquire plenty of those in time, and they will be accolades with real significance.

(ALSO: STEM; The Arts and Creative Expression)

LL&H 5. Assemble your own personal book of quotations. As sources you can of course use favorite books as well as library and internet resources, but don’t forget the favorite sayings and wisdom of those closest to you. If you have a friend or relative who has a special quotation, try making a beautiful copy of it and giving it to them, framed; you can even make the frame yourself.
The internet is full of great quotation sites. For some young people, finding the words of famous men and women that resonate with their own ideas about life is an extremely important affirmation—especially when the child might not feel as though his or her own point of view is quite like other people’s.

School yearbooks often seem to trade on quotations, and student pages are filled with the words of rock stars, television characters, and other popular figures. Many of the lines chosen by students for inclusion on their yearbook pages are more than familiar—they are clichés and catchphrases as much as significant commentaries on the human condition. While there is nothing wrong with this—indeed, cultures thrive on shared knowledge of just this ephemeral sort—it is worth the trouble for the student to dig more deeply into history’s store of apt observations and pointed witticisms.

Some young people find that this exercise itself resonates with their own need to find validation in the words of Churchill, Thoreau, Lao Tzu, or Dorothy Parker. They become quotation or aphorism collectors, digging into volumes of familiar quotations and roaming the internet for just the “zinger” to take as a personal motto or e-mail signature line. There are ways to search quotations by individuals with whom one shares an important interest or characteristic, or ways track and sort all quotations on a particular topic. The point is for the young person to explore the ways in which people can use and have used language to precisely frame a viewpoint or a judgment.

It is also important for the quotation-seeker to look close to home. There will no doubt be a family member, a friend, or even a teacher who is locally famous—or notorious—for a particular turn of phrase, and what better way to celebrate that individual’s take on life than by crafting a “suitable for framing” version of that phrase?

(ALSO: The Arts and Creative Expression)

LL&H 6. Write a script and then make a storyboard for a film you would like to make: create the dialogue and the settings, then draw pictures of each scene with the dialogue that would go with it. If you feel ambitious, you could even borrow a camera and start filming; at least, you could make the trailer for your own “blockbuster” movie idea.
The imagination of the young runs to story-telling, but here is a way to attempt to set a narrative out in detail. The script is important, and the storyboard, a film-industry tool in which the director lays out the narrative with scene-by-scene sketches as visual accompaniment, is in itself a powerful story-telling medium; it also enforces a strong discipline of sequence and causality. Most storytellers find it a challenge to begin an elaborate story and actually work it through to a conclusion, and so storyboarding provides a neat and tidy technique for working through imaginative hurdles.

As in so many ideas involving some form of visual representation, the quality of the actual sketches is less important than the narrative structure. For this reason, the budding director might want to begin with a modest project—a documentary on a common activity, perhaps—rather than a full-blown space epic. Such story elements as beginning, middle, climax, action–reaction, conclusion, setting, and character all take on a significance even more stark than when one is writing a short story, and the addition of even the crudest visuals underscores the need for a strong point of view and a clear storyline.

And if the young director can acquire the tools to make a rough-cut of the actual film, all the better! It might even be possible to find some instruction in filmmaking as well as access to the tools of the trade through a local school or public access television station.

(ALSO: The Arts and Creative Expression)

LL&H 7. Find the website for and read an entire issue (or two or three)  a general magazine about society and culture, like The New Yorker, The Atlantic, or Harper’s. There are others. Pat yourself on the back if you feel like writing a letter to the editors in response to something you read. If your letter is published, get someone to take you to dinner when the stay-at-home is over in celebration.
A surprising amount of the world’s intellectual discourse continues to take place in the pages of magazines frankly targeted at the affluent and educated—and influential. In articles, reviews, and opinion pieces, major topics of concern are introduced, defined, and debated, and anyone wanting to understand the nuances of the issues of the day ought to be familiar with the way in which the “national conversation” takes form at a higher-than-network-television-or-even-cable-news level.

The New Yorker is notable not only for the high quality of its non-fiction and fiction content but also for its sophisticated cover art and cartoons; in recent years the magazine has broken important stories on aspects of American foreign policy as well as on human rights issues and domestic policy. The Atlantic and Harper’s tend to have a bit less variety (but more illustrations, some in color), but they regularly feature articles by serious “opinion makers” as well as book, film, and even food reviews. The conservative National Review and the more liberal New Republic and The Nation tend to focus more on political issues, including elements of American culture that have become pressure points in liberal–conservative disputation. Vanity Fair and Rolling Stone are the village elders in a related genre of magazines promoting a particular kind of “hip”-ness; many of these are devoted to a serious analysis of popular entertainment, although the range of topics covered runs from outdoor adventure (and gear! Outside is a leader in this area) to alternative politics (Utne Reader and Mother Jones, for example).

There are numerous smaller magazines of opinion and culture, some with explicitly political agendas and others that cover arts and entertainment from an intellectual standpoint. Left alone in a library or bookstore, the curious young reader can become familiar with any numbers of such publications and, more importantly, become familiar with the ways in which writers with cultural influence frame and express their arguments. At the very least, the young reader is likely to be mildly amused by The New Yorker’s cartoons (although some might be rated PG-13).

Here as always, it’s important to understand that mainstream magazines of the sort here referred to often represent the voices of traditional power elites, and that much content may implicitly or explicitly be based on assumptions strongly flavored with elements of class or educational-attainment bias.

(ALSO: Civic and Community Engagement)

LL&H 8. Challenge an adult in your household or immediate world to a formal debate: choose a topic, set a date, and prepare, prepare, prepare. Then have at it! (Maybe this could become a weekly or monthly event—with a great dessert.)
Nothing makes a young person feel more grown-up than having his or her ideas and opinions taken seriously by other adults, and this interactive activity—and the adult should plan on doing some serious preparation as well—will provide the youngster with both a reason to think seriously and logically about a particular issue and a chance to strut his or her stuff in an adult fashion, with an adult audience/opponent.

A formal debate should have rules, but there is no need to follow any of the many competitive debate structures. Even so, the topic should be clearly defined: “Resolved: That the lawn needs to be mowed only once a month,” or “Resolved: That the United States should devote as much money to solar energy as it does to military spending.” A few minutes of opening statements, a minute or so of rebuttal time for each side, and some time for closing arguments would suffice—equal time for each participant. Time limits, as set forth by a designated timekeeper, should be observed quite strictly so as to keep things fair.

Of course, a debate is not a debate without an audience to convince, and in this case at least a couple of audience members should also be judges—perhaps distributed equitably by age. The point of a debate is to assemble a logical and factually thorough argument that supports the side of the argument represented by each side (known formally as “Affirmative”—in favor of the statement in the resolution—and “Negative”—against the statement), and the categories for judging should be about the quality of the argument, the use of evidence, and the quality of the speaking and presentation.

Regular family debates could even be used to solve ongoing issues (such as the frequency of lawn-mowing) or making household decisions. As participants become familiar with the form, they are likely to grow better and better at it, so watch out!

(ALSO: Civic and Community Engagement)

LL&H 9. Find and read the book that is the basis for a film that you have liked. Find someone else who has read the book and engage them in a serious discussion about the differences between the book and the film; it’s not just about which is “better.”
It is no secret that many popular films are based on books, but in a surprising number of cases the books tend not to have been best-sellers, even if the movies become blockbusters. Or the books may be “classics” that have attracted the creative imagination of a director.

In all events, if you saw and enjoyed a film based on a book, why not pick up and read the book on which it is based? Film series have been based on the fantasy novels of J. R. R. Tolkien and J. K. Rowling, for example, and anyone who has not ventured into The Lord of the Rings or the Harry Potter stories will be well rewarded. In these cases book sales have benefited from the films’ popularity, so the reader will be able to find plenty of fellow-readers with whom to discuss the books; happily, this sales synergy between film and book often occurs.

The differences in story-telling technique between book and film are of course a subject in themselves. Not only do length, scope, and number of characters play a role, but sometimes a filmmaker will choose to take a point of view in the telling that may differ from that of the author of the book. (Such differences sometimes create real friction between writer and director, but for audiences these differences can be a source of interest.) There are examples of short stories expanded to full-length films and lengthy novels compressed to a couple of hours, often with vast amounts of plot stripped out for brevity’s sake. Both art forms, film and writing, impose certain disciplines on artists, and it is in reflecting on these disciplines and how they manifest themselves when a book is adapted for film that the young viewer can sharpen analytical and critical skill.

(ALSO: The Arts and Creative Expression)

LL&H 10. Find the website for and read from cover to cover a poetry or literary magazine. Granta would be a natural choice, but there are hundreds “little” magazines, some “important” and others less so, that publish poetry and short fiction, sometimes along with photography and other visual art. If you want to submit something that you have written or created, pat yourself on the back. If it’s accepted, get someone to take you out to dinner in celebration.
For all that we read that the people of the United States  are low on literacy and debased in their cultural interests, the fact remains that Americans are a manically active people when it comes to writing and publishing poetry. Many universities publish august “reviews” containing poetry, prose, and literary commentary, and a glance at the section of poetry magazines on the shelves of any large bookstore reveals many, many independent reviews, poetry magazines, and literary quarterlies. Poetry is being written, and poetry is being published.

For the youngster with an interest in poetry, the discovery of these magazines can be a revelation—a window into a world of creativity and verbal dexterity and, more importantly, a whole choir of new voices to be heard. A typical periodical—and Granta is among the better known—rewards a slow and careful reading, with some contents requiring deep and immediate concentration while others can be set aside for another time. Even the little biographical blurbs on the writers can be of interest—who are these poets, and where do they come from?

While it is true that many published poets are university-affiliated academics, there are enough unattached citizen-poets to remind the reader that poetry has been a popular and democratic art form since the days of Homer. A number of the smaller of the “small” magazines that specialize in poetry are themselves distinctly demotic in form, with production values taking a back seat to the sheer cramming in of contributed work. Here is poetry at its most raw, and here might lie the opportunity for a young poet to take a first step into the world of the aspiring poet—to complete the “final” draft of a poem or two.

In the past and still in a few cases, the poet’s next steps were to write the cover letter, to fold the obligatory self-addressed stamped envelope, and to stuff them all into an envelope in the form of a submission. Nowadays most poetry magazines solicit and receive submissions via email; it’s even fair to say, despite the “hands-on” urgings of this post, that there are even more online poetry and literary ‘zines than there are ones still in print.

The fortunate young poet will receive the overwhelmingly gratifying news that a poem—or two, or three—has been accepted for publication. As anyone who has ever read a literary autobiography knows, the arrival of one’s first acceptance is often the event that inspires a career.

It might also be happy case that the young poet’s school sponsors its own literary magazine, creating the opportunity not just for submission and publication but also to engage in editorial work—selection and curation, copy-editing, and preparation for press. Many famous writers got their start by publishing in and then working on school and college literary magazines.

(ALSO: The Arts and Creative Expression)

LL&H 11. Write seven poems. Six just aren’t enough. Go back and revise them at least once a week for a few weeks, at least. Do they get better? Submit your favorites to your school newspaper or literary magazine.
Committing oneself to write a series of poems has the effect of committing oneself to be, at least for a time, a poet. Half a dozen poems or more constitutes a serious endeavor, with the attendant issues of both content and quality.

There is no reason that the poems could not consist of a series on a particular topic, for example, or a group of portraits of friends or family members, like the Spoon River Anthology of Edgar Lee Masters. The poems could even, together, form a single narrative. While poems tend to be taught piecemeal to students in school, as if each were unconnected to any other, poems are often grouped around certain themes when they are collected by their authors into book form, and the aspiring poet might turn not just to Masters but to Sylvia Plath’s Arielor Robert Frost’s early North of Boston collection by way of inspiration ("Mending Wall" was just part of the work and landscape of Frost's rural New England.)

Much of the exercise here is not just the writing but also the continuous editing and polishing that poems require. One poet of our acquaintance refers to his collection of poems in progress as his garden, always in need of pruning or other care, sometimes ready to bloom in publication but more often requiring more work before being set out before the world.

Should the young poet complete the poems and find the enterprise congenial, perhaps a poetizing tendency may take root. At the least, the poet should try to submit the work to whatever publications are handy, usually through a school but sometimes through a local or even national poetry contest. Beware, however, any poetry “contest” that offers publication for payment. While most are legitimate in their way, some are scams, and to be truly a “published poet” one should not have to pay for the privilege.

(ALSO: The Arts and Creative Expression)