Rotten Reviews: Invisible Man
“It has its faults which cannot simply be shrugged off—occasional overwriting, stretches of fuzzy thinking, and a tendency to waver, confusingly, between realism and surrealism.”
Atlantic Monthly
Excerpted from: Barnard, Andre, and Bill Henderson, eds. Pushcart’s Complete Rotten Reviews and Rejections. Wainscott, NY: Pushcart Press, 1998.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference
Tagged fiction/literature, literary oddities
“construction of meaning: The act of thinking about ideas, events, and texts and ascribing significance to them. Those who use this phrase typically assert that texts are cultural products that do not have a meaning in and of themselves; rather, the reader constructs their meaning, depending on his or her prior experience and knowledge, his or her emotional state at the time of the reading, and the political and social climate in which he or she lives. Or, put another way, the text has no necessary relationship to what its author intended. This popular literary theory encourages readers to avoid seeking the author’s purpose, since the author’s purpose is allegedly irrelevant; it also encourages readers to believe that a text says whatever a reader thinks it does, which is a highly narcissistic, solipsistic notion. Teachers who act on this belief encourage students to believe that what they feel about a text is more important than the text itself.”
Excerpted from: Ravitch, Diane. EdSpeak: A Glossary of Education Terms, Phrases, Buzzwords, and Jargon. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2007.
“The only qualities for real success in journalism are ratlike cunning, a plausible manner and a little literary ability. The capacity to steal other people’s words and phrases…is also invaluable.”
Excerpted from: Winokur, Jon, ed. The Big Curmudgeon. New York: Black Dog & Leventhal, 2007.
Posted in English Language Arts, Quotes, Reference, Social Sciences
Tagged humor, literary oddities
“Biedermeier: The German and Austrian form of Empire Style, ca. 1815-1848, especially in furniture and articles of interior decoration. Extended to those paintings of the Romantic period that depict subjects favored by the middle class. The term is not applicable to architecture or sculpture.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
“strategy instruction: An important educational approach to working with students with a learning disability. It is based on an assumption that individuals with learning disabilities have significant deficits in the area of strategy development. These deficits may be the result of underlying language disabilities and skills deficits, or of problems in acquiring executive procedures and learning strategies.
In any case, a strategy instruction approach assumes that explicit instruction in learning strategies and executive procedures is a fundamental approach to helping students with learning disabilities achieve their potential.
Strategy instruction typically involves teaching procedures like SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review). Students learn to perform a sequence of specific activities geared toward a specific task and outcome, practice those procedures in a variety of contexts, and apply them independently.
Strategy instruction has proven effective, particularly in college situations where it allows students to meet course requirements independently.”
Excerpted from: Turkington, Carol, and Joseph R. Harris, PhD. The Encyclopedia of Learning Disabilities. New York: Facts on File, 2006.
“Idea for Thought, Purpose, Expectation, etc. ‘I had no idea that it was so cold.’ ‘When he went abroad it was with no idea of remaining.'”
Excerpted from: Bierce, Ambrose. Write it Right: A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2010.
“Discussing boorishness in public places, especially where ‘ermined’ or ‘sabled’ ladies make concentration somewhat difficult, Broun remarked, ‘I want some day to see a Broadway opening without benefit of footnotes. I’d rather not be told by the lady just ahead that a line is “delicious” or “so quaint.” I’d rather be surprised.’”
Excerpted from: Drennan, Robert E., ed. The Algonquin Wits. New York: Kensington, 1985.
Posted in English Language Arts, New York City, Quotes, Reference
Tagged humor, literary oddities
“Nominalization: 1. The process or result of forming a noun from a word belonging to another word class: writing/writings and shaving/shavings derived from write and shave and adding -ing; sanity derived from sane by the addition of the noun-forming suffix -ity; nominalization derived from nominalize by adding -ation. 2. The process or result of deriving a noun phrase by a transformation from a finite clause: their rejecting my complaint or their rejection of my complaint from They rejected my complaint.”
Excerpted from: McArthur, Tom. The Oxford Concise Companion to the English Language. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
“Slur (noun): A disparaging remark or insinuation; insult, aspersion, or sleight; derogation or stigma; a sliding over without due consideration or attention; in utterance, a blurring or omitting or sounds, thereby running syllables or words together. Verb: slur.
‘This slurring of words into a refined cadence until they cease to be words at all is due partly to the Englishman’s disinclination to move his lips. Evidently the lips and teeth are held stationary for the most part, open just wide enough to let in air for breathing )many Englishmen must breathe through their mouths, otherwise they would not breathe at all) with an occasional sharp pursing of the lips on a syllable which does not call for pursing the lips.’
Robert Benchley, ‘The King’s English: Not Murder but Suicide.’”
Excerpted from: Grambs, David. The Random House Dictionary for Writers and Readers. New York: Random House, 1990.
“Minimal Art: The most reductive of all the Post-Painterly Abstraction movements. Minimal painting—rejecting space, texture, subject matter, and atmosphere—relies solely on simple form and flat color for effect. Minimal sculpture, usually of monumental size, is equally free of personal overtones, relying on the simplest geometric forms and the power of its presence for effect. Artists identified with minimal art include Barnett Newman, Ellsworth Kelly, Dan Flavin, Donald Judd, Agnes Martin, and Larry Bell.”
Excerpted from: Diamond, David G. The Bulfinch Pocket Dictionary of Art Terms. Boston: Little Brown, 1992.
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