Five Ways to Help Fight Illiteracy
March 18, 2008
photo credit: jinglejammer
Illiteracy is a serious planet-wide problem. The only way that we, as a global community, can fight illiteracy is to band together and tackle it head-on. It all starts with one person. One person who has the passion, the empathy, and the desire to help. That person could be you. It’s not hard. Here are five things you can do to help fight illiteracy.
1. Be an advocate
Learn about illiteracy and then spread the word. Let others know that it’s a real problem, one that contributes to crime and poverty and one that continues to oppress people. Share news and information, and always encourage reading.
2. Write about it on your blog
If you have a blog or any other platform, you can use it to help inform the public. Writing about illiteracy is another way to be an advocate and spread the word. Encourage people to pitch in and help.
3. Donate to the cause
Organizations like Reading is Fundamental could really use your help. If you can, donate money. Or, donate your books. You can also bring books to your local library, or almost any other donation center.
4. Volunteer
Time is precious, but that’s all some of us have to give. Imagine the joy of teaching a child letters and words. Imagine the wonder you could witness teaching an adult to read. Contact your local library to find out about reading programs in your area.
5. Give the gift of books
A book is a wonderful gift to give and to receive. When you give a book as a gift, you’re giving so much more — the joys of storytelling and literature. Here’s a tip though: make sure your book gift is at the proper reading level for the person you’ll be giving it to, and also be sure you choose something of interest to that person.
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From Where Green Does Come
March 17, 2008
Do you ever wonder where words come from or why one word can have so many different meanings? Take the word green for example. It has several connotations:
- Noun: a secondary color, which is a mixture of primary colors blue and yellow
- Noun: money
- Noun: golf course
- Noun: foliage, vegetation (spring greens), a grassy plot or area
- Adjective: sickly in appearance
- Adjective: environmentally friendly
- Adjective: young, rookie, inexperienced
That’s not all. Green is also used to express jealousy, as in: He was green with envy. Jealousy itself is often called the green-eyed monster (thank you Shakespeare). It’s also the name of a room where actors and other celebrities wait before going on stage (the green room). In the U.S. it’s the universal symbol for go (red means stop). Along with red, it’s one of the official colors of Christmas, and by itself it is the well-known and much loved signature color for all things Irish, including St. Patrick’s Day.
Hey, that’s today!
So, where does this lucky color word come from?
According to Wikipedia: “The word green comes from the Old English word grene, or, in its older form, groeni. This adjective is closely related to the Old English verb growan (“to grow’) and goes back into Western Germanic and Scandinavian languages.”
I half expected it to come straight from Ireland.
Here’s another interesting bit: “Some languages have no word separating green from blue.”
I’ve heard that Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow, and that the English language is regarded as sorely lacking in having enough words for love. It’s no surprise when we’re so proficient at word efficiency. We definitely have a nasty habit of letting one word have a huge variety of meanings, some of which are seemingly completely unrelated.
As for me, green is one of my favorite colors, along with violet (better known as purple to many of you). It’s also the color you should be wearing today in order to avoid getting pinched.
I know there are many more green implications. Can anyone out there add to this list? Have you heard the one about the green M&Ms?
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/green
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Changing the Tail
March 14, 2008
This is a flexible writing exercise that could also be called Changing the Tale.
The idea is to build plot generating ideas and skills that will help you understand the basics of story structure. Take the tail end off a story, right after the climax, and change it to something completely different. Choose a story from a book, magazine or journal, film, or even world events, and change the ending!
Gone with the Wind - What if Rhett Butler hadn’t walked away?
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest - Without the lobotomy?
Titanic (movie) - What if the opposite characters had lived and died?
Try this with any of the Star Wars movies (I dare you!), or a Shakespeare play. Try it with a Dr. Suess book or try it with War and Peace. Try it with world history. What would life be like if World War II had gone the other way? What if a different candidate had won a major election (i.e. what if we’d had a different U.S. president in 2001?)?
Or just try it with the last book you read.
This is not an exercise to flesh out completely. It’s an idea exercise more than it is a writing exercise. A few notes will do. More importantly, write a few sentences about how this new ending might affect the integrity of the piece. Would Romeo and Juliet be the classic that it is today if the two lovelorn teens had lived? How would that have changed our culture, the literary canon, or the way the most compelling and moving stories throughout history have been viewed and received?
What story ending would you change? Would you pick one that you didn’t like much, or one that you loved — just to see what a different outcome would have been like?
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Improve Your Writing: Do it Daily
March 13, 2008
Last week I shared five quick and dirty ways to improve your writing. Today, I want to share with you why the number one tip on that list was write every single day.
I started out writing poetry just before I hit my teens. Writing was a sacred outlet, and I poured my dreams, frustrations, and desires onto the pages of my notebook. During those years, I developed a very unhealthy attitude about writing, one that I believe many young or new writers cling to — that talent is all that matters. You had it or you didn’t, and it never occurred me that something that required talent would also benefit from hard work. So, I wrote, but only when I felt like it. Weeks would go by and I wouldn’t write a word, and then in just a few days, I’d half fill a notebook with my amateur poetry.
By the time high school was over, my belief in talent and the habit I’d developed for writing only on a whim or whenever the fancy struck me were embedded into my thinking and my behavior. Later, my whole perception of writing would be shaken.
Eventually I entered the creative writing program at university. For the first time in my life, writing was more than a casual fling; it started to become challenging. Surrounded by peers of equal or even greater talent, I started pushing myself. I started wanting to be a better writer — a talented writer, yes, but also a developed one. My coursework required that I write constantly. In one semester I would have anywhere from two to four writing classes, with lots of homework and plenty of projects, which kept me busy writing — every single day.
Immediately, I began to see a change in my own work, a shift. The poetry I wrote was consistently better than what I’d written the day before. My short stories, once flat and boring, started to take on some life, and my essays, which had always been strong, reached new levels.
There were many reasons for this rapid growth. I learned the value of editing, of being a choosy reader, of using resources, like books that were packed with writing exercises designed to improve different aspects of my writing or help me discover new terrain in my work, and the feedback of peer reviews and critiques were all invaluable. But these practices ebbed and flowed. One course would be heavy with peer reviews, and other courses wouldn’t involve them at all. Some instructors liked to see the raw footage, the unedited stuff, others made you proofread and revise incessantly. One thing, however, was completely consistent. I had to write every single day.
It was this practice of making writing a daily habit, a priority in my life, that I feel had the greatest impact.
There are thousands of tips out there for how to be a better writer. You’ve all read the books, or at least heard of them. There are articles and lists, web sites (yes, like this one), and short courses that say do this, do that, write sideways or upside down. Write in a park, or try a cafe, use a thesaurus, burn the thesaurus… All of that advice does have value. Sometimes you’ll find a golden tip that works perfectly for you but it’s rare for those tips to prove helpful for everyone. Only a very few bits of advice are truly applicable to every writer across the board, and writing daily is first and foremost among them.
It almost seems obvious if you think about it. You want to be a writer, so uh — yeah — you should write. A lot. Yet many don’t. Are there a few extra specially talented writers out there who can just produce mind boggling work without practicing regularly? Of course, they’re prodigies. Should you let a day go by without writing a single word? Yes, occasionally, that’s probably a good thing to do. A little break now and then can give you some perspective. But for the most part, writing every day is what will make you grow consistently, and it will help you become the best writer you can possibly be. And that’s what we all want, right?
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Reading Break
March 11, 2008
For Sci-Fi Lovers
As I mentioned in this month’s introductory post, I’ll be featuring a different book in the sidebar each week throughout the month of March. Last week, I featured Snow Crash
Red Dragon
Now, I’m featuring Red Dragon
And if You’re Not Into Sci-Fi or Horrific Suspense
Don’t worry, next week I’ll step away from such things and bring you a book that’s a little more grounded in reality. In the meantime, you might want to take a reading break and check out some past posts about reading:
Reader’s Delight: This post covers a few of my all time favorite books. Truth be told, I could write a hundred posts featuring my favorite novels.
A Reader First: This was one of the very first posts on Writing Forward. It talks about my experiences as a young reader.
My Multimedia Life: This is a new blog that I recently launched. I love writing about writing, but sometimes I want to write about other things, like losing my job when the company I was working for went under, or reasons for being an animal welfare advocate, why it’s important to be kind, and my dirty little secret: American Idol addiction (ssh, don’t tell anyone!).
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