Keeping in Shape Intellectually

Mr. Buck

Recently, Brian Tolentino – M.Ed – made a great statement about battling today’s society of its obsession with screens and moving through life at a fast pace.

 

   “Students need to read books. Entire books. Our society is distracted, unfocused, and in a hurry. A curriculum that rushes through content perpetuates the anxiety of our time.  Reading a book (slowly and leisurely) is a countercultural act.”  

 

    Senior General English is currently reading And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. With its complicated plot and British literature, students are reading a chapter at a time and also deciphering British formal diction. 

 

    Students pick a sentence per chapter that contains formal diction that they do not use or recognize. They then define that unusual word and share it with the class. Occasionally, students will have to “Stand and Deliver.” Stand and deliver means they will have to stand and read their “card” (containing the sentence with formal diction and its definition). 

 

    Hopefully, exercises like this will compel students to read, write and speak well. 

 

   As Jordan Peterson said, “If you can think, and speak and write, you are absolutely deadly. Nothing can get in your way.”