Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Sound Advice..and Personal Reactions

I enjoyed reading SOUND RESOURCES, Julie's last post, and the various sites that she recommended for sound theory in writing, particularly in younger children's stories. Written Sounds, Rhyme Zone and Rhyme Weaver are all fun, informative and tickle the ear.

But it was the discussion of the thesaurus that got me thinking of that great literary tool that was first published in 1852 and has been used by students and writers ever since. I love my old copy which my father used as an engineering student at MIT. This worn book with covers falling off is an old friend and as I flip through it  I remember my Dad's stories of using at MIT in the prewar years.

My Dad loved reading, especially poetry, but also was deep into the sciences. Many of his fellow students did not have the same literary appreciation. It just wasn't in their DNA. Each year the engineering students were required to take a humanities class. When the professor would give an assignment that called for a review of a book or poem he would say, "Do a personal review. Give me your personal reaction." The classmates would come to my Dad and say, "Pete, what does he mean? Personal reaction?" They had different talents and their heads and ideas dwelled in abstract thought, scientific equations and structural components, not personal reactions. Dad would give them his best personal advice, using various tools, including the thesaurus.  

Most of us children's authors can't build bridges, satellites, or computers, but we can use the building blocks of our craft to make good literature for children with intriguing sounds and fun rhymes by using sound effectively and using these inventive websites for sound ideas as well as our thesaurus.

7 comments:

  1. The building metaphor works for me - doesn't matter whether you're building bridges or books. You need to use the right tools.

    ReplyDelete
  2. So wonderful that your dad was able to help his fellow students! Giving personal reactions is not always easy. It seems like it should be but so many times we have been trained to write more formally / academically when a personal touch would make writing so much stronger. It is so wonderful when writers can retain our own voices in all writing (including formal/academic).

    ReplyDelete
  3. I agree Eileen. The tools of a writer include describing personal reactions, and arranging words and phrases in ways that are pleasing to the ear (and the brain). For younger children especially, using alliteration, and other sound devices can be very effective.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great story! It's refreshingly sweet to hear about people who don't have a personal opinion about something. Everyone I know is seething and bubbling over with them, especially me! It seems sort of humble. Though I'm sure they had plenty of personal opinions about how to build a bridge or solve a spatial problem...

    ReplyDelete
  5. Does this story demonstrate the left brain, right brain differences? For many of those scientists, numbers may have been the equivalent of words. Numbers were a familiar language. Poetry was not.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for all the comments on building good literature for children with an ear out for the sound tools that we writers need to use to construct manuscripts to entice children with intriguing sound effects and story. It's a reminder too that we write for children with different focuses, some creative in the arts and literature and others talented in fact driven sciences.

    ReplyDelete
  7. This is an entirely new information for me, as far as picture-book writing goes. I work with many ELLS, and few of my students hear English at home, so this is something for me to think about as I select books and plan lessons--and write.

    As for personal reviews, to me, it is all about the student. One of my goals for next year is to enable students to post reviews of library books. There are books I have been "iffy" about that turned out to be a big hit with students, and vice versa (although I think my judgment over what my kids tend to like is pretty good at this point). And when I am working on my novel, I always have my students (well, the ones that are now in middle school) in mind. Both as characters and readers.

    ReplyDelete