I wonder if you have seen the Roman Polanksi movie The Ghostwriter, or read the novel The Ghost by Robert Harris that it is based on. The premise of the film and novel is that the central character is hired to ‘ghost’ the autobiography of a past unpleasant and venal British prime minister (not unlike – though the author unconvincingly denied it – Tony Blair). By ghost we mean, of course, that a professional writer interviews his or her subjects and then crafts their words into a book so that their name (not the ghostwriter’s) appears on the books covers.
If you haven’t seen the film, here is the trailer for it.
Of course lots of skulduggery (‘secretly dishonest or illegal activity – also used humorously’ according to the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English) take place in the book and the film, but ghostwriting itself is widely practised. Most of the politicians’ and sportspeople’s autobiographies you have read are ghosted. As Ewan McGregor says to the ex-prime minister “I interview you and turn your answers into prose”.
Might ghostwriting be a nice way of approaching storytelling and storywriting for upper intermediate/advanced students (or for that matter any level students)? I think/thought so, and used it in my demonstration ‘lesson’ at IATEFL Poland in Łodz two days ago. But like all teachers’ (my?) ideas it hangs on a filigree thread of plausibility! Even if it is a good idea it’s probably been done by millions of others before me, anyway. Whatever. I tried a number of things with my ‘class’: for example (after they had watched the film trailer) I got my ‘students’ to watch a teacher telling a classroom story. Then they had to think of all the ‘ghostwriter’ follow-up questions they could have asked her to learn more about the incident and, perhaps as a result, make her story even more dramatic. We then thought of other ways she could have introduced her anecdote/story. After that we talked about getting students to research some of the vocabulary (collocations, chunks etc) of key concepts of the story so that they could use them and thus ‘bump up’ the story’s impact. My ‘students’ told each other stories and were then interviewed in more depth about them, and then the ‘ghostwriters’ had to turn what they had heard (those stories) into 1st person narratives – as if it was their story (that’s exactly what a ghostwriter does). My ‘students’ also looked at a faithful transcript of the anecdote they had heard/watched and talked about how to turn it into elegant written prose – and we discussed how this transcription and tidying up can be a useful way of analysing language and language use. I said I’d write a blog about it so that they could post any of their ghostwritten stories if they wanted.
They/you probably won’t! But you (dear reader) could always post your own ghostwritten paragraph or two if you felt like it. In other words, how could YOU best tell somoene else’s story?
But what do you think of ghostwriting? After all we all tell stories all of the time, and everyone has stories to tell. Might this be a way of getting really good narrative-writing results. Is it an effective way of having students analyse language (see transcription above). Is this better than teaching students stuff? Should students be given good models of ghostwritten narratives to look at first (as someone in Łodz suggested)? And anyway, how DO you get advanced students to write, and is narrative a useful or important genre anyway?
So many questions! There always are. Everything we do has a chance of working (even if, as perhaps here, it doesn’t quite come out right)
I had always thought that if I got an invitation to go to Israel to work with teachers and students there I would refuse. Israel, the big bully of the Middle East, building, by force, settlements on Palestinian land they are not entitled to; carving a great big wall through territory they have no right to; using maximum force in densely populated areas where civilians are, of course, slaughtered in their hundreds; boarding peace convoys in international waters so ineptly that people died.
But I know, too, that Israel is the target for rocket attacks, and that not all the Gaza flotilla personnel were peace-loving saints; I know that Israelis – innocent Israelis – have been killed by rockets, in restaurants and in buses. That all Israelis have a well-founded fear for their safety.
But still. They way the Israeli military behaves, with its daily humiliations of Palestinians and murderous retaliations for any wrong done to it strike most people I know as unacceptable in every way.
As a boy I thrilled to Leon Uris’ great saga of Zionism, Exodus, which told of the founding of modern state of Israel. Only later with populist books such as O Jerusalem! by Larry Collins and Dominc Lapierre did I begin to understand at what price this state had been born and about the ineptitude and culpability of the British for the great mess of the Middle East. It takes time to see things clearly.
Two of the most moving and meaningful books/plays I encountered in the 1990s were Inherit the Truth by Anita Laski Walfisch (about the cellist’s amazing survival, with her sister, in the horrors of Auschwitz – where she played in the camp orchestra – and Belsen) and My Name is Rachel Corrie (a play based on the writings of the 23-year-old American who was murdered by an Israeli bulldozer driver as she tried to stop a Palestinian family’s home from being obliterated in yet another rapacious piece of land-grabbing). It’s complicated, see. And anyway, perhaps, “History should never be regarded as a zero sum game…the past is mostly far more nuanced than a simple battle between good and evil” (Harmer 2011:255).
At the time of the Gaza Peace Flotilla fiasco conversation erupted on Twitter and in Mark Andrews’ blog provoked by the visit of IATEFL patron David Crystal to speak at the ETAI conference. Some people thought that, given his ‘official’ status in our organisation it was not right for him to speak at an Israeli teachers’ conference. David Crystal himself argued passionately (in conversation), that ‘if I refused to go to places where I disapproved of that country’s governments I would never go anywhere’, and that it is always better to engage in conversation than not to. I found him (as so often) persuasive.
In the end, my invitation to Israel came not because I am a teacher trainer/writer, but because I perform shows with my colleague Steve Bingham, and the British Council in Israel wanted us to perform our show about Charles Dickens there. And though my inclination was to say no (see above), I found that such a position would be (a) too self indulgent, (b) hypocritical for someone who, like David Crystal, has been to countries where I really really disapprove of what the government does there, and (c) a wasted opportunity to understand more – you really DO need to ‘see for yourself’ sometimes. Governments are not the same as people. Teachers and students all over the world are – teachers and students. Two other factors combined to help me make the decision to say yes: I really like doing shows – that’s the selfish one – but/and The British Council has offices in Ramallah too, and maybe, if we did the Israel gig we would get invited there. And so off we went.
And did the shows. They seemed to go really well, especially at the Arab Academic College in Haifa, where (do we flatter ourselves too much here?) two groups of Arab Israeli schoolkids, who joined the teachers and students in the audience, were really bowled over by hearing original Dickens accompanied by Steve Bingham’s wonderful musical artistry. It might have made a difference.
You forget, sometimes, that Israel is 75% Jewish, but that other ethnicities and religions inhabit the compressed region within its (sic) borders. As one taxi driver told us, ‘I am Israeli, I am an Arab, This is my country. The Jews came and took it, but they are nice people I like them’. Another Arab Israeli teacher was less accommodating, saying that by the time they (the Israeli government) had finished annexing all of Jerusalem there would be no chance of a final solution (she used the term unironically).
Guess what! I met some incredibly intelligent, kind, socially conscious and engaging people in Israel. Mostly (but not exclusively) teachers, they were just like other incredibly intelligent, kind, socially conscious and engaging educators I spend my professional life with. Like many other visitors to Tel Aviv, I thought what a great place it would be to live – if you could forget at what price it had been made, and what lengths the country goes to (has to go to?) keep it happy. I met all shades of opinion in Israel: the lunatic rightwing American who told me that the God of Abraham and Isaac was out to get me after I refused to sign a petition to say that Jerusalem should be 100% and only Jewish; the settlement defenders; people steeped in the ‘either them or us’ mentality; but people too, many people, who deplored the wrongs done to Palestinians but who, nevertheless approved of the wall, the ‘green line’, because there have been no bombings since and ‘my children can get the bus to school in peace’; people who only escaped being bombed in restaurants by chance; a mother who was appalled that her son was going into the military because he might end up at the checkpoints humiliating Palestinians ‘but at least it will be him…we have taught him to question everything…rather than some other redneck’ (sic); the young teachers in training worrying (like all teachers in training) how to do their very best for the kids with learning difficulties that they were trying to help.
And what I, as an outsider, mostly learned was that Israel is not/will not go away anytime soon. Whether other people like it or not, Israel IS going to continue to exist. That it is full of ‘us’ too and that some of ‘us’ are pretty good people and some of ‘us’ are nasty thugs. Not much of a revelation I suppose. But the craziness of Israeli politics – a system that ensures no government ever has sufficient power to REALLY do something (like make peace) – the debilitating indoctrination that military service offers (the Arab Israeli taxi driver would never go to the army ‘to kill my brother Arabs, but now they are killing each other! Arabs! It is a crazy world.’), and the impossibility of getting anyone in the region to agree about anything…all that does not provoke much optimism. So what can you do if, like me, you have no power or importance?
The great Jewish musician Daniel Barenboim and the late-lamented Arab Edward Said set up the West Eastern Divan Orchestra, an extraordinary collection of musicians from Israel but also the Arab world – Jewish Israelis and Palestinian (and other Arabs). A great political act? No. Here’s Barenboim talking (in Parallels and Perspectives) about the first time the young musicians met:
“One of the Syrian kids told me he had never met an Israeli before and, for him, an Israeli is somebody who represents a negative example of what can happen to his country and what can happen to the Arab world. The same boy found himself sharing a music stand with an Israeli cellist. They were trying to play the same note, to play with the same dynamic, with the same stroke of the bow, with the same sound, with the same expression. They were trying to do something together. It’s as simple as that. They were trying to do something together, something about which they both cared, about which they were both passionate. Well, having achieved that one note, they already can’t look at each other the same way, because they shared a common experience. And this is what was, really, for me, the important thing about the encounter…..the area we are talking about – the Middle East – is very small. Contact is inevitable. It’s not only dollars and political solutions about borders that are going to be the real test of whether a peaceful settlement will work or not. The real test is how productive this contact will be in the long run, I believe that in cultural matters – with literature and, even better, with music, because it doesn’t have to do with explicit ideas – if we foster this kind of contact, it can only help people feel nearer each other, and this is all.”
And here they are playing the Adagietto from Mahler’s 5th symphony, one of the greatest love songs ever written.
Reference:
Harmer, T (2011) Allende’s Chile and the Inter-American Cold War. The University of North Carolina Press
Forgive me for repeating myself (a frequent and unattractive trait), but there’s this Dickens thing coming up. Tomorrow.
(By the time you read this it will probably have happened already).
Oh sorry! If you don’t know what I am talking about, it’s a show I am doing/have done with friend and colleague Steve Bingham about the magical storytelling of Charles Dickens. The British Council asked us to do it and we have had great fun putting the words and music together for the show. Oh, and since it’s his 200th (and 1 day) birthday today here’s a last photo of of him!
But the point is – and the point of this post – is that it took a long long long long time to choose and prepare and rehearse and tryout our 65-minute show. Hours of time.
And it’s the same with conference presentations. I was talking to my colleagues at a conference in Barcelona last weekend, and there seems to be some variability about this. Some presenters (like me) spend hours and days and weeks building huge documents of notes, suggestions, pictures etc until they gradually coalesce into something that has a narrative – and the possibility of engaging a group of listening teachers. Others seem to be happy to throw a new idea – or a quick description of what they are doing – at an audience in record time.
And what happens when/if the talk is ready? Well for me it takes about two or three ‘goes’ before I feel really comfortable with what I am talking about – before I know how to pace things well.
At the weekend I saw a brand new talk from Scott Thornbury on the use of gesture, physical movement etc in language learning and teaching. I would happily listen to it/watch it again tomorrow because like all his talks it was engaging, thought-provoking and enjoyable. I’d love to see it again after 3 or 4 more outings too – to see how it has evolved!
Is that the same with planning lessons, I wonder?
Right now I SHOULD be preparing 3 new talks for a trip to Vietnam in two weeks. But I am blocked by the knowledge that there is no time.Help me someone!!!
It’s all Mr Dickens’ fault.
What about you, I wonder? How much preparation do you need to do when you present to teachers (or work with students)?
The new year is bringing many exciting challenges. First of all there was the ‘Dogme debate’ at the IHWO DOS conference which was extremely enjoyable. @Luke Meddings gave a wonderful, gentle (but passionate) account of why unplugged teaching (that is working with – and in reaction to – the language that the students bring into the classroom rather than with materials) mattered to him – and why he was so committed to it. This was in reply to my own critique of the book that he and Scott Thornbury have written on the subject. You can read follow-ups and comments about all this from @mcneilmakon here and from @jemjemgardner here.
Talks in preparation are about multi-tasking and focus – a development from the enquiring blog I wrote about it. I wanted/want to know how we can ensure our students’ attention – and what they should pay attention to,. The best way to tease out thoughts (perhaps) is to try and put a coherent session together about it, and that’s why I am working on this one. Making new sessions is a great developmental tool. Planning teacher training sessions is, maybe, the best way to learn about/reflect on teaching.
I have to re-work and amplify a session on how people can best collaborate and share both within schools and institutions, but also in the wider world. I love the wide world we all swim around in via our PLNs, blogs, conferences, meeting etc, but in the end (I want to argue), the most important communication and collaboration exists within institutions.
Talk preparation is nerve-wracking and exhilarating all at the same time; a bit like doing the CELTA teacher training course is for many teachers in training.
Perhaps the most exciting (and genuinely scaring event coming up) is an evening presentation called ‘Bent and Broken into a better shape’ – a celebration of the life of Charles Dickens, perhaps England’s greatest-ever writer of novels. With musician Steve Bingham I was asked by the British Council to do a show to celebrate his 200th anniversary and so we have been wracking our brains to find a way of conveying his genius in a 60-minute presentation. A lot of wracking going on! How do you convey the sheer ebullience of those 19 novels, countless short stories, fiery polemics – not to mention a whole busy chaotic, involved, complex life.
In the end we have gone for 9 short extracts interspersed with comments about the great writer and the contexts in which his novels were written – all (well some) of this will be enlightened by Steve’s extraordinary music. We are doing some tryouts before the event is filmed (and live-streamed) in the great hall of The British Medical Association on Tavistock Square, London on February 9. This is appropriate since Dickens lived on the site for ten years. As you can see from the poster, you can come along and watch/listen, or watch the live stream. We’d love to have you along.The big fear is whether reading from a writer’s works is the right way to celebrate his or her achievements, especially a writer as prodigious as Charles Dickens. And yet what other way is there, in a short time, to convey his amazing character descriptions, his scary and wonderful stories, his ability for comedy, his romanticism and passionate reforming zeal? Answers on a postcard, please.
In the meantime, it’s off to conferences in Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Turkey, Dubai etc. Perhaps 2012 should be the year where we/I reconsider the benefit – for participants – of such parachute visits. I wonder.
Oh, and there’s a new book. But that’s another matter.
What about you? Big challenges for 2012?
What would you like to prepare a new talk about in order to have think about it seriously?
What new talks are you working on?
If you had to present a show about a great writer who would it be and how would you do it?
I received an email yesterday from Lulu. Lulu is an online site where you can self-publish your own books. They told me that a novel I had written, called The Whistle at Siete Vientos had now been published as an iBook and that anyone could download it at minimal price. I downloaded the sample chapters (don’t want to pay myself and Lulu to be honest!) and boy, it looks very nice, thank you, on an iPad (or whatever iSomething you use). I love the way you flip the pages!
It made me think of Tara Benwell, PLN member and self-publisher of a novel called The Proper Order of Things – a curiously dark and compelling tale of family dysfunction, lit by extraordinary characters and an apparently guiless heroine (but is she?!). Tara is doing amazing work publicising her novel. And so she should.
Or should she?!! See it’s a whole lot easier when someone else publishes our work. I am lucky enough to write, in the main, about what good English teachers do around the world and that somehow distances me a little bit from my ego! Furthermore it is in the publisher’s interests (not just mine) to sell as many copies as possible. So somehow it doesn’t feel so bad to, for example, give talks which will help the books on their way – although (he said defensively) I try to avoid overt commercialism because I am not sure that helps teachers – many of whom don’t make book choices anyway.
But Tara is her own publisher – as I am for my own novel. So no one else is going to do the leg work except her – or me. But it feels awkward. Please please buy my book! Pleeease! – how easy it has been to think that one is above all that when a publisher is involved, but if I want to sell my book (and Tara hers), then that’s what I have to say, I guess.
Ego! Selt-belief! Do we admire self-promoters? Is it a bit British to be vaguely disapproving of people who hawk their own wares? Certainly the Twitter self-publicists are, on the whole, thought less of than the ones who exchange information, have fun and share. Yet how else is David to get his English Garden material known if he doesn’t shout about it himself? How else can Tara expect to win the Booker prize (or Canadian equivalent) if she doesn’t promote herself shamelessly?!!
Not the first time for me of course because I made a CD with my friend Steve Bingham. But that’s easier too, because I can tell everyone what an incredible musician he is (because he really is!). With the novel there’s no shield like that!
So that’s it, really. Of course I want you to BUY MY BOOK! But that’s really NOT what this post is all about. It’s really about what is acceptable for self-publicists and how to do it without looking like a prat (DEF: a major idiot, delusional and dumb)!
Jeremy Harmer 