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Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton

Orthodoxy (1908) is a book by G. K. Chesterton that has become a classic of Christian apologetics. Chesterton considered this book a companion to his other work, Heretics. In the book’s preface Chesterton states the purpose is to “attempt an explanation, not of whether the Christian faith can be believed, but of how he personally has come to believe it.” In it, Chesterton presents an original view of Christian religion. He sees it as the answer to natural human needs, the “answer to a riddle” in his own words, and not simply as an arbitrary truth received from somewhere outside the boundaries of human experience.

The book is developed as an intellectual quest by a spiritually curious person. While looking for the meaning of life he finds truth that uniquely fulfills human needs. This is the truth revealed in Christianity. Chesterton likens this discovery to a man setting off from the south coast of England, journeying for many days, only to arrive at Brighton, the point he originally left from. Such a man, he proposes, would see the wondrous place he grew up in with newly appreciative eyes. This is a common theme in Chesterton’s works, and one which he gave fictional embodiment to in Manalive.

In keeping with this detachment from dogmatic religion, the book has few quotations from (although many allusions to) Scripture. It also lacks authoritative statements by religious authorities. To be sure, Chesterton is discussing the traditional orthodoxy, as contrasted with non-Christian ideas. He assumes his readers know its basic tenets well, as they are, he says, “sufficiently summarized in the Apostles’ Creed“. Chesterton is not investigating differences between Christians or details of their beliefs in a way that would require him to appeal to other authorities. Still, the book’s message is mostly presented as a free intellectual inquiry by an individual looking for an explanation to the mysteries of human existence that satisfies his own innate reason.

• Gutenberg e-text
• Wikipedia – G. K. Chesterton
• Live audio stream of entire book
• Zipped files to add to your iPod (174MB)

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Ring Lardner and Baseball

This time of year when many sports fans turn to baseball, my mind wanders to writers like Ring Lardner, who wrote about baseball during the game’s heyday. Oddly, I’ve never taught Ring Lardner, and now that I don’t teach American Literature, the odds are slim that I’ll be teaching him anytime soon. But the impulse remains: it’s time for a good baseball story, and what follows is one of the best — You Know Me Al.

Big, fat, dumb, lazy, vain, headstrong and cheap, Jack Keefe is a journeyman pitcher with the Chicago White Sox in the rowdy days of the Deadball Era, circa 1915, ruled by the likes of Ty Cobb and John McGraw. In You Know Me Al, we follow Jack Keefe’s life on-field and off, via the letters Jack writes to his old chum Al in his home town of Bedford, Indiana.

Ring Lardner was a Chicago sportswriter who covered the White Sox, and he brought an insider’s knowledge of clubhouse life together with his biting wit and gift for the vernacular to create a comic gem in You Know Me Al. The six Jack Keefe stories that compose this volume were originally written as individual magazine articles, but the epistolary format made it easy to collect them into a single running narrative covering Jack’s first two years in the Big Leagues.

It isn’t necessary to know baseball history to enjoy the book, which is as much about Jack’s troubles with girlfriends, wives and babies as it is about the Chicago White Sox. For the baseball fan, however, this glimpse into a bygone era adds an extra layer of fascination. In any case, Lardner’s portrait of the professional ballplayer as a dumb, drunken narcissist is as funny today as the day it was written. (Summary by Rick Rodstrom)

• Gutenberg e-text
• Wikipedia – Ring Lardner
• Live audio stream of entire book
• Zipped files to add to your iPod (141MB)

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First post from iPod Touch

I downloaded this amazing Wordpress app that enables me to update this blog from the comfort of my couch. Not bad, especially since I’m trying to spend less time in front of the computer. I can also post pix with this app, but I’ll have to fool around with it a bit before I get the hang of it.

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Possible Topics for “Mid-Term Break”

Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” offers many possible topics to write a paragraph about.

By Friday my seniors will have to annotate Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break” as well as write an insightful paragraph about it. Writing about poetry is not easy for them, so to get them ready, to sort of grease the wheels, we did a little brainstorming for possible topics. The above photo shows what my whiteboard looks like after such a brainstorming session.

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Mid-Term Break

What my whiteboard looks like after we get done discussing possilbe meanings of the title of Seamus Heaney’s “Mid-Term Break.”

In my class the whiteboard is becoming more an essential tool for thought, helping us to capture what we think and challenging us to explain why we think it. For example, today my seniors read “Mid-Term Break” by Seamus Heaney as their poem of the week. In both periods we discussed the possible meanings of the title, which at first seems not at all related to the topic of a young boy who’s killed in an accident. But after scratching away at the surfaces, we began to see the title as rich in nuance and hidden meanings. The connotations of the three words almost overwhelm the poem itself. I wrote our brainstorming on the whiteboard and took a snapshot with my old digital camera.

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Van Gogh’s Bedroom, 1889

In a letter to his brother, van Gogh described this painting in great detail:

My dear Theo —

At last I’m sending you a little croquis to give you at least an idea of the direction the work is taking. Because today I’ve gone back to it.

My eyes are still tired, but anyway I had a new idea in mind, and here’s the croquis of it. No. 30 canvas once again.

This time it’s simply my bedroom, but the colour has to do the job here, and through its being simplified by giving a grander style to things, to be suggestive here of rest or of sleep in general. In short, looking at the painting should rest the mind, or rather, the imagination.

The walls are of a pale violet. The floor — is of red tiles.

The bedstead and the chairs are fresh butter yellow.

The sheet and the pillows very bright lemon green.

The bedspread scarlet red.

The window green.

The dressing table orange, the basin blue.

The doors lilac.

And that’s all — nothing in this bedroom, with its shutters closed.

The solidity of the furniture should also now express unshakeable repose.

Portraits on the wall, and a mirror and a hand-towel and some clothes.

The frame — as there’s no white in the painting — will be white.

This to take my revenge for the enforced rest that I was obliged to take.

I’ll work on it again all day tomorrow, but you can see how simple the idea is. The shadows and cast shadows are removed; it’s coloured in flat, plain tints like Japanese prints.

It will contrast, for example, with the Tarascon diligence and the night café. I won’t write to you at length, because I’m going to start very early tomorrow with the fresh morning light, to finish my canvas.

How are your pains? Don’t forget to give me news about them.

I hope you’ll write in the next few days.

One day I’ll do you some croquis of the other rooms as well.

I shake your hand firmly.

Ever yours,
Vincent

What follows is the artist’s original sketch for the painting which he drew as part of the letter to his brother.

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A Crate and an Unfinished Book

Nothing confounds writers more than the challenge of organizing drafts, notes, miscellaneous scribblings, odd jottings, etc. so that we can find the stuff and use it later. The book I’m writing now — A Thousand Words: Graphic Organizers in the English Classroom — grew organically over the course of four years, and finding the right system of organization has given me a feeling of pleasure and control and has even had an impact on how I organize materials for my teaching.

My Crate — and four years’ of work

I started working on this book during the 2006-07 school year in response to a need I felt English teachers have for reproducible graphic organizers — plus, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a teacher’s explanation of how they’re actually used in a real classroom with real students. The ready-made audience for the book also had a lot to do with my pursing it, of course. Anyway, what I wanted to say is that all of my writing and student examples are currently filed in this big plastic crate on my desk. I enjoy telling my students that there are many ways to think about “drafts,” for drafts can be a on piece of paper, stored on an electronic device, or even shoved into a huge crate.

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The Simpsons Lord of the Flies – Das Bus

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Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

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I found this interesting short film about Wallace Steven’s “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird.” I plan to use it as part of my poetry unit with bith 10th and 12th graders.

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“The Daffodils” by William Wordsworth (Rap)

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MC Nuts spits William Wordsworth hip-hop style.

The Daffodils

by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A Poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed–and gazed–but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

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