Art Department Showcase

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My head hurts from this one, but apparently this is a complete, grammatically correct sentence:

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Mental Floss has a good explanation of this little grammatical mind-twister. It took me a couple times reading through the article to figure it out. If you're teaching parts of speech, your kids may get a kick out of it. I'd love to see a student explain it through a sentence diagram.

Shakespeare Behind Bars

Paul Moliken, our Senior Editor, just alerted me to this movie -- looks like my Netflix queue is going to be full of Shakespeare for a while.

"If you’ve ever wondered about the redemptive power of literature on an individual’s life, then you owe it to yourself to watch “Shakespeare Behind Bars,” a documentary about a group of men in prison, who put on a performance of The Tempest. Their nearly half year of rehearsal (time counts for nothing in jail) is broken up by “Antonio’s” stretch in solitary confinement and by “Ariel’s” leaving for a maximum security prison. However, the rest of the cast, which is made up of a non-inmate volunteer director, plus murderers, thieves, and other extremely bad men, carry on splendidly.

We see them in rehearsal practicing lines, learning how to deliver them with meaning; we also see them speaking directly to the camera about their crimes and how Shakespeare has prepared them for life, both behind bars and after parole. The insights and personal revelations that the lines bring to these inmates is startling—almost all cry at their understanding of how the Bard, dead for four centuries, can relate to their particular individual weaknesses and to humanity in general.

“Caliban,” a huge, formidable, frightening prisoner, tries everything he can to get into the psyche of the monster. “Miranda” is especially touched by the similarities between himself and the character and feels that their pasts are exactly the same! “Prospero,” a veteran of several past productions, seems to be the most accomplished actor. The rest do overact for the most part, but their enthusiasm is necessary for the production to succeed, since the audience is composed primarily of other prisoners.

I found myself hoping that the two men who had their parole board hearings shortly after filming would be released into society. The Board disagreed with my opinion, however, and denied the paroles.

The cast offers some startling comments about their lives, along with some vulgarities, either of which might offend a lower high school class, but if you’re teaching The Tempest, or would like to offer a class a different perspective on Shakespeare’s genius, the movie is highly recommended."

Outside Writer of the Year!

Congratulations and many thanks to Eva Richardson, our inaugural 2007 Writer of the Year!

We have dozens of writers around the country, many who are former English teachers, who help us develop the many different classroom resources that we're able to put out each year.

This year, we're starting a new tradition of nominating the off-site writer who's done some of the best work this year. It's a difficult decision to make but our Sr. Editor and New Product specialist agreed that this year, Ms. Richardson has gone above and beyond in writing products this year, and we have a lot more projects that she's working on for us.

Congratulations!

By Eva Richardson this year:

The Rime of the Ancient Mariner - Teaching Unit
Animal Farm - AP Teaching Unit
The Grapes of Wrath - AP Teaching Unit
Animal Farm - Multiple Critical Perspectives Guide
The Grapes of Wrath - Multiple Critical Perspectives Guide
Great Expectations - Multiple Critical Perspectives Guide

Slings and Arrows

Jason just let me know about a Candian TV series that's jumped right to the top of my netflix queue called Slings and Arrows. It's a dark comedy about the struggles of a fictional Shakespeare Company, and now that I've seen episode 1, I can't wait to see the rest.

Reading is Fundamental in Crisis

Many of you may be benefiting from Reading is Fundamental's program of inexpensive book distribution for over 4.6 million children, so I thought you might all be interested in the latest news from RIF.

Since Prestwick House is an authorized distributor of materials for RIF, with our inexpensive Literary Touchstone Classics and other classics, we're kept up to date on the goings-on at RIF headquarters.

We were upset to recently receive an E-mail letting us know that RIF's budget for this program has been completely eliminated by the new Bush budget.

The good news is that RIF and their supporters are fighting to get their money back. See what RIF is doing now to get their budget of $26million re-instated and see how you can help RIF.

A Plea to HS English Teachers (From a College Creative Writing Teacher )

Tayari Jones has a very elegant and readable blog. I found it when I happened on this post about how HS students who read:

1) "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson
2) "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway
3) "A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner

...grow up to be stunted creative writers in college.