Friday, June 03, 2005
Teaching Writing in the Times
Typical, of course, that the Times would publish a lament on education in the form of a Fish editorial espousing an interesting-but-arcane way of teaching writing. Still an interesting article.
The next step (and this one takes weeks) is to explore the devices by which English indicates and distinguishes between the various components of these interactions. If in every sentence someone is doing something to someone or something else, how does English allow you to tell who is the doer and whom (or what) is the doee; and how do you know whether there is one doer or many; and what tells you that the doer is doing what he or she does in this way and at this time rather than another?
