Math and I are old Frenemies. We whisper about each other behind each other's backs-- word problems indeed. In this area, it's hard to talk about my feelings-- where they came from, how gendered they might be. Maybe you can relate, or maybe you can't; maybe numbers make you feel confident, like whatever is quantifiable is also manageable. Maybe you love equations more than, say, a great burrito. For a moment, I'm looking at the other side of the story. I mostly avoid math, though I do run a business (hi!). In that business, I help students write personal essays that must meet unforgiving word or character count limits. So the math I use most on a daily basis is addition (do these words surpass limit?) and subtraction (what can we take out to be under the word count limit?). With these numbers in mind, I pull the gem sentences and phrases from the slush sentences. I'm comfortable with these constraints. I'd happily do that for you. Getting 2,071 words down to 650 doesn't scare me. Tax Day means Math Day Problems All my feelings about math resurface on Tax day, the math-iest day on the calendar. Tax day, thankfully, falls during Poetry Month. Now poetry I get. That's really moved society forward. You can sign up for poem-a-day here. Most, but not all, of my clients & students are too young to pay taxes as head of household, so they (you) are not exactly sharing my pain on tax day (yet). But no one is too young to understand what giant horse-crap taxes are. The less you have, the more you pay. I work with students from families across the economic spectrum. For complicated reasons, and due to unforgiving math, my own economic situation is sometimes perilous. It's good for empathy. If I possibly can, I offer sliding scale as an option for payment. I understand. But at least I wrote off all those books I bought. After Math Day comes Non-Violent Day So April 16th is a great day in the world of ordinal numbers because it means Continue Reading …
Martin Luther King Jr.
Indelible Moment
King's "Letter" as Life-Changer I don't remember the moment when I first read Martin Luther King Jr.'s "Letter from Birmingham Jail," but I quickly became a groupie. I think it should be required reading before you can register to vote. Stick with me here-- your college essay connection comes later. The letter is particularly, though perhaps too cordially, critical of the white moderate. They/we, then as now, did not seize the historical moment. We who had the power to loudly and unequivocally announce opposition (with our very bodies) to ongoing hate crimes, despicable marginalization and economic exclusion suffered by blacks-- said nothing, or didn't say it forcefully enough. It was not the right moment. You have let my ass DOWN, he tells us. Your lukewarm support is worse than outright rejection. You can hear him talking-- everyone knows the sound of his voice. But are we lulled by it, or do we realize THIS IS OUR MOMENT TO BE OF USE? THIS is the moment to say something, this very one, flying by. Good writing stops you in your tracks. I teach the "Letter" this time every year to the 7th grade students at the TEAK Fellowship in my personal essay writing class. They munch Cheez-its while they parse his exquisite grammar and syntax, the nuances of his message. This is not an essay of the Dream. This is the essay of necessity. It is really about our current moment: the silence of good people is worse than anything. ... The best writing contains at least one moment that causes us to turn inward, and, if listened to, can change our lives. ... King's goodwill is admirable, his anger carefully packaged into bad-ass, stinging, argumentatively impeccable prose. If we look closely enough, we are indicted. We should not feel good reading the letter. We should have a moment when we shudder, and peel off a layer of denial. In the letter (I'll link it all over, in case you forget to click through) King explains the need for and Continue Reading …
Read this, then write yours: Letter to Change Lives
A Letter to Guide Us Essay intensive didn't really know what to say after the election results came in. We couldn't even write you a letter defending you, whoever you are, or properly post our views. We had whiplash and tried to cure it by staring straight into the maelstrom of social media. Then, we went right to the feet of the most articulate person we know: Martin Luther King Jr. (He's a close friend). Just so happened we teach his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" every year, and on Nov 8th we were right in the middle of its protest and panacea. From WTF to Why This Fortunate? King's"Letter from Birmingham Jail" should be read in every school, jail, and waiting room. He used ignorant criticism of his work against racism, materialism, and cancerous bigotry as a chance for extreme creativity. His opponents (in the CHURCH, mind you) handed it to him. They asked that King-- who they labeled an "outsider" and "agitator" who should mind his own business-- to puh-lease let racism proceed at its merry awful pace in Birmingham. King could not concede. Well let me just write this one letter first... In pristine, respectful response, in a public letter, King laid out his entire non-violent resistance platform and its historical necessity. Opportunity is wherever you decide to find it King took opposition as opportunity. The result, started on bits of toilet paper from his jail cell where he was serving time for the truly demonic offense of "parading without a permit" (sound familiar?), is one of the most important documents of our time. If and only if you'd like to know how to write well, mastering what grammar, syntax and allusion can accomplish, elevate discourse with your oppressors to hold them to their highest selves (which may not exist-- this is where the imagination is handy), logically lay out an exhaustive plan for achieving common humanity. If you don't, look elsewhere. Maybe at cat videos. What King's Letter Made Continue Reading …
Who Empowers Us to Speak Up?
Speak Up Like the Daddy Mack of Eloquence MLK Jr.'s writing gets me thinking about how to help my students speak up about what they know and see to be true in this world. The brutal stuff. The beautiful stuff that exists alongside the brutal stuff. King's the Daddy Mack of eloquence--whatever you think of him, it's hard to discredit that bit. His writing, and his speeches, speak up in ways that land sound bites on t-shirts, yes, but they also unmask how our institutions and attitudes systematically undermine and destroy our humanity. He puts the painful and critical ingredients of social justice into phrasing so musical, so clear, so rich with common references, that it's hard not to listen. That's a marker of great writing-- even if you didn't want to, something makes you listen. The reach of good writing is farther than you think To tune MLK Jr out is like tearing your eyes away from a TV where a major accident is being reported-- hard, near impossible. I want his cadences to get into my students-- of every color and creed-- by osmosis, repetition, sustained exposure. I want them to write better despite themselves. This blog focuses on how the practice of good, clear writing, by a writer who is aware of his or her values and character, can get you into (your dream) college, but the reach of good writing is and should be much bigger and bolder than just that. Punch above your weight It's true what they say: silence is not just the opposite of speech. The truth might move at light-speed when it's finally set free, but to speak up, we first have to slough off the weight of a thousand slumbering elephants in our shared room. They are in the classroom, too, those heavy taboos that stop humane progress. My dream, my prayer, my practice, is that every child in every school be empowered to punch way above his or her weight, to speak up with voices that cannot be ignored because the writing is too damn good, and to send the elephants back to Continue Reading …
How to start your best college essay? Mind your Mind
Your essay is mental Your college essay starts in your mind and with your mind. It seems like your college essay begins on the blank page, I know. But all words have a murky pre-history in the mind. So it's important to know what our minds are really like, what conditions in there are shaping, selecting, and producing those critical words. If we're serious about writing with the "sincerity" and "honesty" colleges hope to detect, then we better know what drives us. And the biggest threat to progress is not examining our minds for the problems they make. So when you-- the writer, the student-- mind your mind, you increase the possibilities for great outcomes in your college essays, and (since real life matters) in the world. Better word and better world. This is why our college essay projects at Essay Intensive begin with the state of your mind and end with the transformation of your life. If you agree that it could be cool to give this essay bigger context, meaning and impact, read on. If not, you know, go have a snack and get on to writing! Dr. King did it Dr. King knew how to write what was on his mind, but not without looking skillfully at what was in it first. Along with many other unsung civil rights activists, Martin Luther King Jr worked (himself to death) for a better word and world. As is true for of your best personal writing, language was his power tool-- the familiar language of the people, but used in new, stimulating, and even acrobatic ways. To change what people do, you have to change how they think. And how they feel. Direct them towards positive possibilities, even (especially) in dire circumstances. This doesn't take SAT words. It takes something much more basic. A threat to justice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us in "The Letter from Birmingham Jail"; this unrelenting honesty and urgency of the letter is admirable. Every year, reading it with my 7th graders, I cry. I ask them Continue Reading …
Grammar As Game-Changer
Risky Statements Supposedly, Martin Luther King Jr. began his “Letter from Birmingham Jail” on bits of toilet paper—the only paper he could get in confinement. His need to express his position on peaceful protest, like the need to use the bathroom, was that urgent. This was a personal statement, impeccable in its grammar, that risked his personhood in order to stand up for non-violent resistance as a radical act of love. This mission was why he was alive, and also why he would not be alive for very long. Continue Reading …