Book Report # 4

Deborah Farley-Opsal

OWP Summer '01

Book Review: Reviser's Toolbox

By: Barry Lane

Lane's book has some wonderful quotes or "thinkers," that leads one to do more reflection on the topic. A couple of my favorites quotes from this book are:

Great questions rise from curious minds, cluster together like popcorn, are preceded by deep silence, have no answer.

Leads are magic flashlights that shine down through a story showing the writer what to put on and what to leave out.

His first section called Digging Potatoes: Crafting Meaning from Start to Finish gives great examples for helping students to write good leads. He says that leads are not topic sentences; rather they are seeds that help a writer begin to figure out where the plant is growing. From this he has numerous wonderful lessons on developing good leads:

"Outside or inside questions"

"Macro-Micro leads"

"Follow my Lead"

"My Favorite Leads"

"Leads in Expository Writing'

Chapter 2 was intriguing; he takes the student through a number of lessons and has the students look through imaginary binoculars to zoom in on interesting details of writing. He focuses on the senses, and has students use their own personal senses to go deeper into writing than they would probably do on a first or second draft of writing. He has both easy and really versatile "binocular" lessons.

Chapter 5 was very interesting, as it shows students how to use their own voice in expository writing. He addresses some popular myths that are taught in many writing programs in school today. I was pleased to read that this style of writing does not need to have such rigid guidelines as I had been led to believe.

I liked Chapter 8 the most for my own personal use, entitled "Talking Shop." It gave me personal strategies for writing letters, punctuation, improving vocabulary, writing with style, and writing a business letter. I loved the techniques and specific examples the chapter gave me, including personal examples from Malcolm Forbes.

This book also gave some lessons that are adaptable in Spanish, a definite bonus for me. I am trying to figure out how to incorporate some Spanish into my curriculum, and this great book did some of that for me!

It would be a super book to have as a resource. It was not only easy to read visually but has nice pages and graphics to make into class copies, too.