Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Three Beautiful Things 11/13/07: Mormons, Tight Writing, Noble Cattle Ranching

1. My 10:00 WR 121 class got into a loud discussion, voices yelling across the room, about whether the Mormon church sanctions adult men having sex with thirteen year old girls. It was pretty funny as three lapsed Mormons worked to explain to one student who had heard this was the case with Mormons that he was wrong.

2. I enjoyed, probably more than my students did, reading passages from Buffalo for the Broken Heart just what a mindful writer Dan O'Brien is, especially when it comes to structuring his book and working to make each piece of it, paragraph by paragraph, hold together.

3. While discussing Buffalo for the Broken Heart, we've discussed Dan O'Brien's criticisms of cattle ranching and Joleen talked about her upcoming essay which is a discussion of her mother's side of the family. They have been cattle ranchers for five generations on land near Weiser, Idaho. She explaining in her paper that theirs is a noble undertaking. I was proud of Joleen. She was risking disapproval. I was proud of my students. They listened intently to her and some might have had ugly thoughts about cattle ranching made more complicated, thanks to Joleen.

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