Over and over, I am reminded of how important "shared knowledge" is for writers and readers, and how a lack of shared knowledge can cause problems for those feeling like "outsiders."
From a recent Frank Bruni e-newsletter and his "for the love of sentences" feature:
From The Washington Post, Michael Gerson contrasted Christianity at its best with what Trump’s evangelical supporters have not only accepted but also embraced: “It is difficult for me to understand why so many believers have turned down a wedding feast to graze in political dumpsters.”
This sentence demands some knowledge of the Wedding Feast of Cana, where Jesus turned water to wine, though it does not have anything specifically alcohol-related. The assumption Gerson was making was that the reader would be able to create a quick mental image of a sumptuous wedding feast as well as imagine desperate people foraging for food in dumpsters.
A lot of kids won't be able to imagine EITHER scenario, so this essay only can connect with older readers. Trying to get students to appreciate Gerson's prose and points would require all sorts of backgrounding just to get students to "get" the basic contrast. That seems like a lot to ask of teachers already struggling to get everything done in their curriculum.
In The Tampa Bay Times, John Romano reflected on the predominance of passing over rushing for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, led by the phenomenal quarterback Tom Brady: “When you have Eric Clapton in your band, you don’t schedule a lot of drum solos.”
This metaphor might have a chance with many students, as long as they have even a vague familiarity with Brady (and the NFL) and with the idea that Clapton is a famous guitarist. His point is that most teams (most people) tend to emphasize what they do best, even though there may be fine reasons to try something else (and that being somewhat one-dimensional might eventually cause problems for that team).
Sometimes reaching for a clever metaphor backfires, in other words, particularly in a student publication.
Bret Stephens (in the New York Times) on Trump’s evolving excuses for absconding with classified documents: “With Trump, the line between the shambolic and the sinister is often blurred. His entire being is like Inspector Clouseau doing an impression of Jack Nicholson in ‘The Shining,’ or maybe vice versa.”
The first sentence relies on a comparison, but hinges on the reader knowing what "shambolic" means. Some students might be able to puzzle out a meaning, using the more common "shambles" to tease out the adjectival meaning -- it boils down to messy or disorganized. Stephens is also just having some fun with alliteration, of course, but for many students this is just creating added levels of meaning.
And the simile, comparing two fictional characters from movies that were popular when I was young, will be tough for our students. They likely have not seen either film and then the writer is asking them to imagine those two characters interacting... and I honestly had trouble with that.
The dithering inspector trying to be menacing is all I could get out of it, and maybe the former president is behaving precisely in that way.
The teaching point here is that metaphors and similes are never exactly correct... and always give readers some room to maneuver. And sometimes a good piece of writing opts for precision and has to turn away from "clever."
On the money phrases may not make Bruni's newsletter, but for our young writers and readers are often the best choice.
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