Literacy

Your language is the single most important feature of your humanity, and the most important tool you will ever use. Here are some ways you can cultivate your own capacity to use language:

GENERAL TIPS

  • Make a habit of doing something every day to cultivate your literacy. Pick something small—one small thing you can do every day. Then, do it every single day, preferably at the same time every day. Small changes can add up over time and eventually have a huge impact on your literacy and, therefore, your life. As the Dutch painter Vincent van Gogh observed, “Great things are not done by impulse, but by a series of small things brought together.” Start your own series of small things today!
  • Above all else, read. Read widely; read material that challenges you; read as often as you can.
  • Talk to others about what you’re reading.
  • Write about what you’re reading.
  • Study words that you don’t know and that you want to learn. Here are some suggestions.
  • Deepen your understanding of how language works by doing some of the activities described here.
  • Studying analogy—“the fuel and fire of thinking“—is a fun, effective way to promote critical thinking and to build both vocabulary and content knowledge. To get a feel for how analogies work, try to solve a few here.

TIPS FOR READING

  • If you’re looking for interesting writing about, say, sports or science, simply Google “best sports writing” or “best science writing.” The first hits will probably include anthologies that you can buy on Amazon, but they will also produce websites like Longreads.com that curate lists of excellent writing. Here, for example, is Longreads’s “Best of 2017: Sports Writing.” And here are “Six great pieces of science writing you may have missed” in 2015, curated by the Columbia Journalism Review.
  • Subscribe to The Writer’s Almanac to receive a poem and “on-this-day” historical notes every morning.
  • Subscribe to Dr. Mardy’s Quotes of the Week (after clicking on the link, scroll to the bottom). Each weekly issue includes a puzzler and a number of quotations related to a theme.
  • Subscribe to Delanceyplace.com, which delivers a brief daily email with an excerpt or quote that the website views as interesting or noteworthy, offered with commentary to provide context. There is no theme, except that most excerpts come from a non-fiction work, primarily historical in focus, and will occasionally be controversial.
  • Your use of language fundamentally depends on the breadth of your vocabulary. So one simple, essential way to strengthen all your verbal skills is to make regular, deliberate efforts to learn the unfamiliar words you encounter, especially in the texts we read for our class. Here are a few suggestions.

TIPS FOR WRITING

  • Keep a daily journal; it could change your life! Here you can read celebrated writers describe the creative benefits of keeping a diary.
    • Reflection.App: “Start a meaningful reflection practice with a journal that guides your personal growth each month. It’s private, secure, and free.”
  • Try responding to one of these 1000 writing prompts. Then, if you like, read what and how other students wrote in response to the same prompt.
  • Select a photograph, painting, or some other work of art (from here or here, for example)—and then write about it in some way.
  • You can learn a lot about writing by studying the work of your favorite authors, journalists, and bloggers. When you come across a sentence you especially like, try writing your own sentence in the same pattern. This process is called “sentence modeling.” If you find you like sentence modeling, you’ll probably enjoy practicing the exercises in this excellent workbook. (You’ll find the answers beginning on p. 117.)
  • In NoRedInk, click on “Learn” at the top of the screen to reveal the “Curriculum Library.” There, uncheck the box to the left of “Grammar & Conventions.” Doing this will leave visible only the “Writing Concepts,” which you can then study and practice at your leisure.
  • Your use of language fundamentally depends on the breadth of your vocabulary. So one simple, essential way to strengthen all your verbal skills is to make regular, deliberate efforts to learn the unfamiliar words you encounter, especially in the texts we read for our class. Here are a few suggestions.
  • When you write, try to cultivate a positive attitude toward revision/rewriting. To help you reframe your thinking, here are the thoughts of some great writers on the art of revision.
  • If you’re especially motivated to grow as a writer, you’ll probably find these books interesting and even inspiring:
  • If you’re especially motivated to grow as a writer, you’ll probably benefit from the timeless advice of 124 great writers.

TIPS FOR LISTENING

  • Join Listenwise for free and gain access to its large collection of podcast and public-radio stories. Connect to the real world and build your listening skills at the same time!
  • Listen to The Moth, “true stories told live.”
  • Listen to StoryCorps, “stories from people of all backgrounds and beliefs.”
  • Listen to This American Life, stories around a theme–every week.
  • Listen to one of 63 “Great speeches of the 20th century” selected by The Guardian newspaper.
  • Your use of language fundamentally depends on the breadth of your vocabulary. So one simple, essential way to strengthen all your verbal skills is to make regular, deliberate efforts to learn the unfamiliar words you encounter, especially in the texts we read for our class. Here are a few suggestions.

TIPS FOR SPEAKING

  • Watch and really pay attention to this excellent TED Talk on “10 ways to have a better conversation.”
  • Join the Debate Club, Drama Club, or any other extracurricular activity that will require you to use your spoken language in different, more challenging ways.
  • Take Mr. Simone’s Public Speaking course!
  • Recognize that every class period presents you with opportunities to speak in public. Think about that—and take these opportunities seriously. Here is some advice on how to speak up in your classes.
  • Your use of language fundamentally depends on the breadth of your vocabulary. So one simple, essential way to strengthen all your verbal skills is to make regular, deliberate efforts to learn the unfamiliar words you encounter, especially in the texts we read for our class. Here are a few suggestions.