Recently I have been reading Benjamin Franklin’s Autobiography for my Lit class and I thought what he did to become a better writer might be applicable to those serious English students like me.</p>
Basically what Franklin did was that he [“converted well-written prose writings from magazines into poems, and vice versa.”] It struck me as worthy of a trial because it does seem like a pretty good exercise to sharpen my understanding of the English language and develop my prose-compose skills.</p>
I should also note that at the time Franklin was deeply into poetry, and so he obviously wanted to become a better poet. However, he also read, read, and read and valued prose-writing very much, aspiring to become better at it.</p>
I’ve decided to try with several poems by Alexander Pope, basically turning his poems into simplified, prose writings without much abstraction, and then converting them back to poetry. (Though the latter won’t be as good as the original, of course.)</p>
So what do you guys think? of course it IS time-consuming and, as I’m taking several AP classes, I won’t be able to do much with it. But I thought, as opposed to the conventional method of passively reading passages&poems and answering relevant questions, as in the Prep books, I might benefit more or in a different way by being more exposed to composition itself.</p>
Thoughts?</p>
<li>If anyone wants to join me, I’ll be fine with it. Exchange e-mail addresses, share work and progress, etc. I’m a strong believer that true learning happens BOTH at school with friends and teachers And at desk sitting by yourself. Especially in humanities subjects like English, I think there’s plenty of room to improve ourselves in ways that school can’t. (Independent reading, etc.)</li>
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