thecrashcourse:

How and Why We Read: Crash Course English Literature #1

In which John Green kicks off the Crash Course Literature mini series with a reasonable set of questions. Why do we read? What’s the point of reading critically. John will argue that reading is about effectively communicating with other people. Unlike a direct communication though, the writer has to communicate with a stranger, through time and space, with only “dry dead words on a page.” So how’s that going to work? Find out with Crash Course Literature! Also, readers are empowered during the open letter, so that’s pretty cool.

(via penamerican)

Source: thecrashcourse

How to Speak Whale - Amanda Petrusisch, NYTimes.com

housingworksbookstore:

The “Moby-Dick” marathon organizers assembled a list of “practice words” for readers to mull in advance of the marathon. Stretch your tongue muscles and dust off your dictionaries, Melville fans.

  • ambergris
  • bilge
  • belike
  • bespeak
  • bestir
  • bethink
  • betoken
  • brevet
  • calomel
  • catarrh
  • cetology
  • concupiscent
  • Daggoo
  • gamboge ghost
  • grampus
  • grapnel
  • harpooneer
  • hawser
  • kannakin
  • isinglass
  • jalap
  • luff
  • orison
  • orotund
  • parang
  • Queequeg
  • quirt
  • scimitar
  • skrimshander
  • yaw

Might use some of these in my Moby-Dick based pieces.

Voice is most likely the element that keeps you reading, that makes you care about what is being said, that makes you trust the writer. The music—or voice of the text—underlies and supports the meaning of what you have to say and it is the music from my first draft that tells me the meaning of what I have written. As I listen to the music of the draft, I begin to understand the meaning of the text and as I hear how it will sound in the reader’s ear I learn how to revise for that reader so the meaning will be heard.

Donald Murray, The Craft of Revision (via teh-covert-writer)

Definitely think this can apply to all artistic disciplines.

(via penamerican)

Source: teh-white-lioness