How Stephen King Teaches Writing - The Atlantic - 0 views
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One either absorbs the grammatical principles of one’s native language in conversation and in reading or one does not
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Reading is the key, though. A kid who grows up hearing “It don’t matter to me” can only learn doesn’t if he/she reads it over and over again
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Ask yourself what they need to get on in life, the bare minimum (like filling in a job application), and concentrate on that.
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I would often ask them to describe operations that they take for granted. Ask a girl to write a paragraph on how she braids her sister’s hair. Ask a boy to explain a sports rule. These are just basic starting points, where students learn to write on paper what they might tell a friend. It keeps it concrete. If you ask a kid to write on “My Favorite Movie,” you’re opening the door to subjectivity, and hence to a flood of clichés
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Good teachers can be trained, if they really want to learn (some are pretty lazy). Great teachers, like Socrates, are born