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This blog is a supplement to Saint Agnes School's Senior Capstone Seminar, a course in which senior students have elected to read some of the greatest books of the Catholic intellectual tradition and discuss them in a Socratic seminar format. This blog will attempt to track our conversations throughout the year as well as post articles and news of related interest to the content of the course.

Friday, December 9, 2011

The Greatest English Teacher



Fabulous article that I can relate well to (I'll have to check my grammar on that dangling preposition). Required reading for all of you. Here is a sample:

Father John Becker, S.J., sat at the front of the classroom, paperback in hand, glasses pushed to the end of his nose. As he spoke, he looked intently from one student to another.

"This semester, I am going to teach you how to read 'King Lear,'" he said. "It may be Shakespeare's most difficult play. But it has a powerful message to tell."

When we were done reading "Lear," the priest promised, we would not only understand it, but we would have learned the secret of understanding any thing written in English — anything, that is, with a meaning to discern.

And we would love Shakespeare.

At the time, I don't think any of us understood what Father Becker meant. But the things he started teaching us that day made him the greatest English teacher I ever had.

Read the rest here.
The Greatest English Teacher CNSnews.com



(Incidentally, the English Grammar Book referred to in the article sits on my bookshelf. It is the classic, Writing Handbook by Frs. Michael P. Kammer, S.J. and Charles W. Mulligan, S.J. and updated by my English teacher at St. Ignatius High School in Cleveland, Fr. Bernard J. Streicher, S.J. Get it...you will not regret it!)

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