Tomorrow and Friday I am going to the high school to speak to three classes about their essays, those Crime and Punishment attempts, and about essays in general. I always wonder whether there will be good questions. These students are supposed to be the smartest in the city, skilled in math and science, in gifted education since kindergarten sort of idea. What that has done for them is made them confident, even arrogant, but it hasn't made many of them into critical thinkers. That's where good writing begins.
I am almost finished with the block portion of the Christmas quilt quilting. I have a tiny bit more background and a couple of inches of the candy cane sashing. I am thinking of doing echo quilting on the inside side of the light strand and then a diamond grid on the outside side using painter's tape to mark the lines. That way the quilt edges will be more stabilized than they would be if I simply outline quilted the light cord and then did the stars. Since this is intended to hang on the wall stability is important.
(Update 11/7) I spoke with two classes today partly about their essays and partly about what an essay is. One young lady asked how to begin an essay. She asked this smack in the middle of my explanation of what the prompt they responded to expected of them. So I finished my sentence and then asked her, in response to her question (she was directly in front of me and waving her hand so it was hard to ignore), "What does this book mean?" Keep in mind that the class is done with Crime and Punishment.They have read, discussed, dissected, written the essay. The young lady said she had no idea what the book meant. Trying to make it easier on her I told her she didn't have to be right (if there were such an idea); she only needed to articulate some personal notion of what the book means. She said she had no idea.
We'll see if tomorrow brings good questions.
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