I thought it was going to be about writing! Instead, this little book (with the marvelous title) is an expansion on some of Quinn's thinking from his previous books, beginning with Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit.
Are you concerned about what got us into the societal, economic, and climactic crisis' we are in? Do you yearn to know what can and cannot be done? Are you afraid of fake news? This book explains a lot and will give you the tools to use your own mind to find the answers that will make sense to you.
This is, first and Reading a book right after you finish a book. (My first review.)
I love Daniel Quinn's ideas. I believe he's one of the foremost thinkers of our age. I like the way he writes and I like his "Martian anthropologist" way of looking at culture. That said, I think his Socratic approach works a heck of a lot better in fiction than when he's transcribing a conversation/interview he did with an actual reader/fan. I felt patronized by proxy and I don't like it.
Lists with This Book
This is, first and foremost, a book anent thinking. It is about assumptions, culture and memes, the dissection of the origin and promulgation of thoughts, and larger cognitive and metacognitive processes. It is lucid and digestible, and I found its Socratic style of dialogue both refreshing and delightful.
With these questions answered (and 500 more on my website), I felt I was fundamentally finished with what might be called my teachings and ready to move on.
Still a terrifically thought-provoking little book, even if I don't appreciate the tone. . more
Daniel Quinn has an astonishingly unique way of looking at the world. He rarely sees the world the way most people do. He always looks deeper, questions fundamental assumptions underlying ideas and questions. He rarely answers questions directly, but exposes their assumptions. I'm always amazed when I see the assumptions he's able to identify, and wished I could do that myself. He was clearly wishing the same thing, so he wrote a book about it.
I love Daniel Quinn's ideas. I believe he's one of the foremost thinkers of our age. I like the way he writes and I like his "Martian anthropologist" way of looking at culture. That said, I think his Socratic approach works a heck of a lot better in fiction than when he's transcribing a conversation/interview he did with an actual reader/fan. I felt patronized by proxy and I don't like it.
"If God is willing to prevent evil but unable to do so, then he's impotent. If he's able to prevent evil but not willing to do so, then he's corrupt. And so, since evil certainly exists, God is either impotent or corrupt and therefore cannot be God." (p. 164,165 refering to how God is supposed to be both omnipotent and good.) . more
The book ends with duplications of two of his best speeches: The New Renaissance and Our Religions. The first is an excellent summary of all his ideas. The second summarizes his ideas on politics and religion, and I find that it nicely summarizes of my own ideas on them, since I agree with him completely.
Get A Copy
This could possibly be the simplest book I've read that did not improve my vocabulary but challenged my thinking process. Challenged, improved and substantiated the way of critically reflecting and reading between the lines. Thanks Quinn! Oh!
Be the first to ask a question about If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways.
I thought it was going to be about writing! Instead, this little book (with the marvelous title) is an expansion on some of Quinn's thinking from his previous books, beginning with Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit.
Ishmael is a really great book what i read of it. It makes you think about life and how to do things.he really has you thinking about how you treat things in this world, and how you treat things. What i read of this book it was really good.
I have only read Ishmael so far, but I hope to read more of Daniel Quinn's books later on. I found the book quite inspiring and hope that more people who are just now starting to read Ishmael will also find it inspiring.
Quinn, who I've mentioned here a few times, is an author who has spent much of his life writing books that try to show readers a different way of looking at the world and the story we tell ourselves about how the world works. In Write Sideways, Quinn essentially tries to answer the question, "once you have seen the world from a different perspective, how do you help other people see that same new perspective in a way that's meaningful and lasting for them?"
As a man who often puts himself in the role of a teacher, Quinn also seems to be ever in pursuit of ways to explain his methods and process, perhaps in the name of passing on the practice of opening eyes and changing minds (his approach to world changing). But as he tells in Write Sideways, he seems to have some difficulty doing so effectively, at least based on the wild and strange questions he gets from his readers. This is not the first time he's told his own story in an attempt to provide some context and background to his approach
Thanks for sharing your interest, Chris. I picked up a copy of Write Sideways this evening.
Recent Posts
Daniel Quinn's book If They Give You Lined Paper, Write Sideways is a short read, but it's not necessarily an easy one to digest, and it leaves more challenges and questions on the table than it takes off. But for anyone interested in having effective engagement with fellow humans about how to make the world a better place, I definitely recommend having it in your toolbox.
The book is structured as a conversation between Quinn and one of his readers, Elaine, who visits him for a few days in his home. It's essentially a slightly edited transcript of the conversation, and so it reads quickly, as though we are sitting in on the conversation, turning our heads back and forth between Quinn and his guest. I thought one of the key points in the book came early on, when Quinn admitted that while he's always avoided looking at himself as anyone special, he's come to accept that he has a unique frame of reference on the world, and that getting to that frame of reference is a kind of skill and wisdom in itself. From there, Quinn guides Elaine through challenges and exchanges that attempt to help her do the same, often with questions from readers as exercises.
Each time I have encountered Daniel Quinn, he has always inspired me. At first it was Ishmael and his other earlier books that inspired me to look at the world in a different way, and to find other people who were doing the same. Since then, when I've met him, talked to him on the phone or heard him speak to groups, it's been his process and approach so some of the world's most vexing problems that have inspired me, as someone who seeks to do some eye-opening and mind-changing in my own life and work.
I love Daniel Quinns book Ishmeal, because it really got you to think. He got you to think of evolution and the stories of the Leaver and the Takers. He got you to think how man came into being and how they think the world either belongs to them or they belong to the world. I now have a different view on humanity and the way that I see the world around me. I have more respect for all living creatures. The way I veiwed God and the holy spirits before was way different then they way that I veiw them now. He helped me to understand that everything in this world happens for a reason and is the way they are because of that and man isn’t the only one in which the world was made for. He shows that we as humans are selfish because of the fact that most people think that everything was made for our entertainment and they wouldn’t be here for any other reason, and that’s when I realized that he was wrong we have to have everything in order to even out and survive.
You may be wondering where those popular handwriting worksheets fit into the handwriting picture
The following activities will help your students develop the muscles in their hands that are necessary to grasp a pencil properly. These fine motor activities can be embedded into your daily routine or during center time.
The most important thing about working with preschoolers who don’t have hand dominance is to not force them into selecting a particular hand. Forcing children into hand dominance will make learning more difficult for them as they will always have to “translate” what they are writing to the other hand.
The way a child holds a pencil is called a pencil grasp. Pictured above is a child using the correct tripod grasp. This grasp requires the thumb, index, and middle fingers to work together and is also referred to as the pincer grasp.
What About Lined Paper?
You can help you students strengthen those muscles in the classroom by providing authentic, fun, and developmentally appropriate activities on a daily basis. These activities will also support the development of appropriate pencil grasps when the child is ready.
Often, when we ask young children to write on the lines they become more focused on the lines and less on the letter formation and pencil grasp. This can cause them to be unsuccessful at all three tasks, which then creates a negative attitude about writing.
- Use a plant sprayer to spray water on plants or “Monster melt”…….draw monster pictures with a marker and then spray them with water.
- Provide child safe tweezers or tongs and encourage children to pick up small marshmallows or pom-poms and place in empty ice cube trays for counting games.
- Provide spring loaded clothespins and encourage children to clip clothes or pictures on a line.
- Provide small child-sized paper punches that make different shapes.
- Provide Cheerios, Fruit Loops, or macaroni and encourage children to lace them on string or yarn.
- Provide small tops to spin.
- Spread cards, coins, or buttons on the floor and encourage students to turn them over.
- Provide a manual eggbeater and a pan of water- add dishsoap for extra fun.
- Mix food coloring and water and use eyedroppers to decorate flattened coffee filters.
- Insert feathers or golf tees into play dough.
- Play with finger puppets.
- Sing chants and fingerplays that encourage the use of the fingers such as 5 Little Pumpkins, 5 Green and Speckled Frogs etc.
- Provide small pieces of chalk or broken crayons for children to write or draw with.
- Provide old greeting cards for students to cut, the thick paper provides the resistance they need to be more successful.
- Spread cornmeal in a shallow pie pan and encourage students to use their fingers to draw in it.
- Place clear hair gel and food coloring in a sandwich bag. Force all the air out of the bag and seal tightly with packing tape or duct tape. Place the bag on a flat surface and encourage children to use their index fingers to write on the bag.
The foundation of all good handwriting begins with the following skills:
Take readers with you from genre to genre (within reason)—odds are pretty bad that you’ll drag your male SF readership with you if you move over to romance, or carry your female romance readers with you if you start doing gritty guy westerns. but you have a lot more latitude for your career than you might imagine—and when you deliver the goods, a surprising number of your readers will brave new aisles of the bookstore to track down your latest work.
Identify markets you never imagined (as well as the one you did) for the project you’re creating—having a backup plan can give your work and your career second and third chances if your first plan dies an ugly death.
Ignore comments from people who hate your work. Folks who hate your genre, or hate your story philosophy, or hate you have no advice they can offer to you that means anything.
Uncover the roles your characters will play—and discover which characters you need to shoot before you even start writing (because there are some characters that will suck the soul right out of your story, and you can identify and eliminate most of these buggers before they wreck your book, if you know what to look for.)
Lesson 29: How To NOT Be A One-Book Wonder: Learn to Produce Repeatable Results
One of the huge benefits of being a writer is that if you are one, and you let folks know that you’re writing a book that requires some of their knowledge, they’re generally happy to help you. I’ve talked to folks with some fascinating jobs, hobbies, and interests, and have acknowledged them in my work.
Now, on to writing in the age of instant communication and direct contact with your readers, and.
SECTION ONE SUMMARY: You’ll discover the deep, rich wellspring of your ideas—and why you don’t ever have to worry about running out of stories to write, or the inspiration to write them. You won’t have to borrow ideas, won’t have to become a cheap imitation of some other writer. You will build your own idea generation system, and it will not run dry.
Can’t write anything because it doesn’t turn out perfect the first time through? Yeah. I remember that. You may have to repeat this exercise, but you’ll get wonderful first-draft words when you’re done.
They can also lend a hand when it comes to perspective drawing and mapping out geometric forms like buildings and cityscapes.
Ruled lines meanwhile help those whose handwriting tends to slant off into oblivion, as can sometimes happen on a blank page.
Unlike a lined pad, a dotted paper notebook’s ruling won’t cut through the downstrokes on under-hanging letters and create an unsightly interruption of your flowing script. It’s barely there and easy to fade out when you publish your finished piece on Instagram.
Want to give your day some order? Use that helpful dot grid to create a weekly planner with boxes for each day, or a daily calendar that helps you stay on track of your tasks from morning to evening. Since you’ve got a whole dotted notebook to play with, you could keep things fresh by trying different layouts and structures each week. That’s a benefit you just don’t get with pre-printed planners.
3. For practicing calligraphy
Dots can add an extra element of structure to your sketch practice. They can help with composition, as you’ll be able to better portion out the page for different parts of your drawing.
If you’re using a dotted notebook as a sketchpad, it’s important to have good quality paper (our 100gsm Munken Kristall, for example) to work on. It really makes the difference. You’ll be able to use an eraser without buckling or wearing the paper, go over lines, and use ink without worrying that it will bleed through.
Best of all, they’re easy to fade out of your photographs using filters and editing tools, so you can post images online and give the impression that you started with a blank page. We won’t tell. Promise.