Writing

Writing to Learn/Think

Tony Reinke Critical thinking, Writing

From Justin Taylor today:

Calvin, citing Augustine: “I count myself one of the number of those who write as they learn and learn as they write.”

John Piper: “Writing became the lever of my thinking and the outlet of my feelings. If I didn’t pull the lever, the wheel of thinking did not turn. It jerked and squeaked and halted. But once a pen was in hand, or a keyboard, the fog began to clear and the wheel of thought began to spin with clarity and insight.

Arthur Krystal: “Like most writers, I seem to be smarter in print than in person. In fact, I am smarter when I’m writing. I don’t claim this merely because there is usually no one around to observe the false starts and groan-inducing sentences that make a mockery of my presumed intelligence, but because when the work is going well, I’m expressing opinions that I’ve never uttered in conversation and that otherwise might never occur to me. Nor am I the first to have this thought, which, naturally, occurred to me while composing. According to Edgar Allan Poe, writing in Graham’s Magazine, ‘Some Frenchman—possibly Montaigne—says: ‘People talk about thinking, but for my part I never think except when I sit down to write.’ I can’t find these words in my copy of Montaigne, but I agree with the thought, whoever might have formed it. And it’s not because writing helps me to organize my ideas or reveals how I feel about something, but because it actually creates thought or, at least supplies a Petri dish for its genesis.”

N.D. Wilson on Writing

Tony Reinke N.D. Wilson, Writing

N.D. Wilson on writing:

“This is simplistic, but it is a starting point. Aim for the whole person. Aim for the downy hair between the shoulder blades and the grinding joints. Aim for the throat and the diaphram and the stomach. Make people nervous, breathless, and hungry. Or just mad.”

This quote was published by Wilson in a blog posts on writing. He wrote a 5-part series—“So You Wanna Be a Writer”—that will appeal largely to fiction writers, but I think these are lessons that will benefit the non-fictional writers out there, too. Here’s his series:

So You Wanna Be a Writer, Pt. 1 (Don’ts)

So You Wanna Be a Writer, Pt. 2 (For the Critics, These Pearls . . .)

So You Wanna Be a Writer, Pt. 3 (Prose for Body and Brain)

So You Wanna Be a Writer, Pt. 4 (An Exercise)

So You Wanna Be a Writer, Pt. 5 (Found Dialog)

So You Wanna Be a Writer, Pt. 6 (The Obstacle Course) NEW!

Piper on Writing

Tony Reinke Writing

“…In my English class [in 1963], the desire to read serious books and the desire to write serious essays and poems was born. This has never gone away. Writing has been an almost daily habit since then—in one form or another—notes, letters, journal entries, poems, ideas, reports, essays, and more. Writing became the lever of my thinking and the outlet of my feelings. If I didn’t pull the lever, the wheel of thinking did not turn. It jerked and squeaked and halted. But once a pen was in hand, or a keyboard, the fog began to clear and the wheel of thought began to spin with clarity and insight.”

-John Piper, “The Pastor As Scholar: A Personal Journey,” Chicago, April 23, 2009.

Self-editing

Tony Reinke Writing

The most difficult feat of human concentration is walking across Niagara Falls on a tightrope during a windstorm. The second most difficult feat of human concentration, editing your own writing! Only because of sin can we be so blind to our own errors.

And both of these feats of concentration are impossible without practice. So for all the writers out there who are never done tweaking, and changing, and shifting, and adding and deleting words and ideas to your writing (like me), this new book — The Artful Edit: On the practice of editing yourself by Susan Bell — looks very promising.

For more information, see Evan Sparks’ short review at The American titled, “Edit Thyself: A Maxim for the New Media”.

On writing book reviews

Tony Reinke Book reviews, Critical thinking, Writing

tssbooks.jpgOne of the fan-favorite features of TSS is our book reviews. Sometimes I get questions from readers who want tips about how I write book reviews.

Well, I certainly don’t consider myself an expert on writing them so I can only offer general thoughts on the process that come to mind.

Also, since I only review non-fiction works some of these thoughts may be more or less useful to reviewing fictional literature. I’ll try to go back to my old Liberal Arts education tools to recall what I learned about works of fiction and see if I can look at reviews both the perspective of a non-fictional work and a fictional one.

Here are some thoughts …

1. Setting standards. Book reviews are an act of literary criticism whereby a specific book is assessed and evaluated from a standard set by the reviewer and the reviewer’s audience. So, for example, the theological works I typically review are first compared to their biblical accuracy, then compared to other works by the same author, and finally compared to other works covering the same themes.

In the past month I’ve read 5 books on evangelism — one was very poor, two were okay, one was very good, and one was excellent. I came to this conclusion by comparing all five to Scripture, and each to one another. Reviewing any literature (and especially fiction) will require standards of evaluation just the same. A work of fictional literature may be compared to other works covering the same themes, compared to the works of other authors in the same era, or compared to a specific work of the author’s other works.

At some level you will need to answer the fundamental question, What am I comparing this book to?

2. Cultivating critical thinking. I love writing book reviews because it forces me to cultivate the rigorous discipline of critical thinking. By critical thinking, I don’t mean that I want to be a critical person. Rather, it means I am forced to ask and answer several discerning questions like the following:

(1) What is the overall purpose of the author?

(2) What question, ethical standard, social custom or problem is being confronted, questioned or solved by the author?

(3) What assumptions do the authors bring into the discussion? Are they writing from a Christian or non-Christian worldview? What is assumed without argument? What worldview do they champion? What school of thought do they represent?

(4) What is the author’s point of view? Is the book written from the perspective of an adult or child? Rich or poor? Preacher, evangelist, or scholar? Where did the author live and what did they experience in life? For me, determining where the author serves as a professor or pastor helps me to understand the individual and the perspective.

(5) What events, information, and evidence does the author use to make her case? Is it strong and clear information, or weak and assumed? Every conclusion must be backed by a series of events and dialogues (fiction) or facts and evidences (non-fictional).

(6) What are the implications and consequences of the author’s arguments? Assuming the author is right, what must change?

These questions help me unlock even the most subtle messages embedded in literature and art. And one great way to put these six questions into action is by looking at an advertisement in a magazine. Every ad has a target audience, a worldview, and a means to persuade. Who is the target audience, what worldview does it embrace, and what is the basis of the persuasion?

It’s only because we are made in God’s image that we have the self-conscious awareness to bring literature under critical thinking and discernment. A true gift from God Himself.

3. Getting at the main point. Let me revisit this point a bit further. I believe every author, painter, advertiser, sculptor, commentary writer, songwriter, and poet is trying to convince you of something. That’s the nature of communication — someone taking a message he is passionate about and seeking to convince others of that message. The big question is, what is that individual trying to communicate?

In literature this may be on the surface. For example, C.S. Lewis in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe makes fairly obvious points — sinful greed corrupts our hearts, this sin negatively impacts our family and those closest to us, and Christ is our sufficient substitute — the One who breaks the power of sin and Satan. However in Lewis’ novel Till We Have Faces, the meaning is much harder to discern (I’m still scratching my head over this one). J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings is another really tough (but rewarding) adventure to attempt to ‘crack.’

Or consider, say, an adventurous novel written about a boy’s hitchhiking travels across the country one summer. It may be a fun adventure filled with surprises, threats, and interesting characters, but it may also have a much deeper intention. Perhaps it was written by a man who was born and raised in New York City and written as a criticism of the way large cities impair childhood development?

You get the idea.

The goal is to understand the author behind the work. Did they live through a world war? (To think of it, perhaps Aslan’s victory in the battle for Narnia is Lewis’ way to comfort children in a time of world war?) So get to know the author, and get to know the world of the author.

But don’t assume that fictional works are disconnected from reality. The truth is that authors with strong convictions have frequently chosen fictional literature to get their messages out. Some consider fiction the best means to communicate reality.

4. Getting at a biblical worldview. Christians are perched on a distinct view of reality because our worldview is informed by God’s eternal revelation in Scripture. We are therefore at a great advantage to evaluate every work of literature as it correlates or contradicts this eternal reality. Finding where themes, worldviews, attitudes, and ethics correlate or contradict Scripture is one of the most interesting disciplines (and downright addictive!).

Centering everything around Scripture also helps me interpret popular literature I disagree with. For example, I obviously don’t agree with existentialism, but I am surprised how fully their writers can communicate the hopelessness and despair of the human condition.

Holding a biblical worldview makes literature reviews quite interesting!

5. Read more than you review. Typically, of all the books I receive in the mail only about half are interesting enough to read. And of those books I read, only half get reviewed. Reviewing half (or even less) of the total number of books I read gives me tremendous freedom to review and invest time thinking through the very best books. There is value to reviewing books you don’t like, but I’ve tried to isolate the books I love and spend my time reviewing those titles. So read much more than you expect to review.

6. Now write. Every review will look differently. Don’t try and force your review into a grid or pattern, just write about what most strikes you about the particular book. After asking all of the questions above, you should have a lot to talk about.

Finally, I cannot help but be reminded of my Liberal Arts prof that impacted my life to a great degree on these things. And since Dr. Joseph Wydeven recently retired, this is a great opportunity to thank him for his work at Bellevue University in Nebraska. He was a tremendous blessing in my intellectual development and growth in critical thinking. Thank you, Dr. Wydeven!

Blessings, TSS readers! Tony

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Related: More on critical thinking here.

Related: Here are my top five favorite books on writing:

  1. The Elements of Style by Strunk and White
  2. On Writing Well by Zinsser
  3. Keys to Great Writing by Wilbers
  4. Hypnotic Writing by Vitale
  5. How to Write a Paragraph by Paul and Elder

Learning to Read: The Importance of Critical Thinking

Tony Reinke Critical thinking, Logic, Reading, Writing

Learning to Read: The Importance of Critical Thinking

I frequently get emails from my readers who want to become better readers. How, they ask, do you read so much? Let me assure you, I am no genius! (Caught off-guard, I will not be capable of producing my wife’s birth date). I know more of carpentry, concrete, and drywall than of libraries. Being born into a blue-collar family, I have accepted the fact that reading skills will be the product of supernatural grace and hard work.

Reading for most of us, like writing, is hard work. Don’t let anyone give you the impression that great writers sit and let the words flow like a waterfall onto the page. E.B. White’s famous children’s book Charolette’s Web – certainly one of the best-written books ever – underwent six major rewrites! This is astonishing, given it is an easy book for children to read and that it was written by a literary genius.

By God’s grace, the defining period of my personal growth in reading and writing came during my undergraduate studies in the liberal arts program at Bellevue University (Bellevue, NE). There I was introduced to people of every background and thought and was expected to interpret all of the discussions, readings and lectures within the concepts and principles of the critical thinking circle (developed by http://www.criticalthinking.org).

The bottom line of what I learned in those two intense years: To read and write well we must be critical thinkers and being critical thinkers demands that we successfully ask the eight specific questions of the critical thinking circle.

Back to the topic of reading.

In their short little book, How to Read a Paragraph, authors Richard Paul and Linda Elder write:

“Skilled readers do not read blindly, but purposely. They have an agenda, goal, or objective. Their purpose, together with the nature of what they are reading, determines how they read. They read in different ways in different situations for different purposes. … When we read, we translate words into meanings. The author has previously translated ideas and experiences into words. We must take those same words and re-translate them into the author’s original meaning using our own ideas and experiences as aids.”

Before I learned critical thinking I thought the key to unlocking the meaning of a book was reading each and every word. No! Unlocking the meaning and purpose of a book is first related to asking the right questions and engaging the thoughts of others.

We must come to a book with the understanding that the author was driven by an idea and wants desperately to convince you of his thought. The publisher thought the idea was worthy to print. So what is the main thought? Is there substance behind the thought? What does the next chapter build from or what has the last chapter established up to this point? What information, concepts, and presumptions does the author bring to the table? Is it clear? Is it fair? Who or what is the author arguing against (sometimes not stated)?

These type of questions are critical in reading critically.

I could go on, but there are a number of excellent and free resources on their website to explain this better. I especially like Critical Thinking & The Art of Close Reading. You can read these and other articles for free here.

Although these resources are not Christian and certainly not without errors (stay away from the booklet on “Media Bias”), I do frequently reference and recommend the following critical thinking booklets:

1. The Miniature Guide to Critical Thinking: Concepts & Tools (foundation of the rest)
2. The Thinker’s Guide on How to Read a Paragraph
3. The Thinker’s Guide on How to Write a Paragraph
4. The Miniature Guide to The Art of Asking Essential Questions

These resources may not immediately make you a faster reader, but they will make you a better and more confident reader. The speed will come with time as your confidence builds and you naturally ask the critical thinking questions of each book.

My own grace-given personal success within a liberal arts education was a great reminder that reading skills and the Spirit-illuminated, faithful exegesis of Scripture, are advanced – not hindered – by clear critical thinking!

Tolle, lege!