This just occurred to me —  More frequently, we are assigned technology-based articles to read with our English composition students.  The debate surrounding in-class instruction versus online classes.  The advantages and disadvantages of smartphones.  Should concert fans have to give up their phones/cameras upon entrance to the facility?   This month I read a novel about a young black, street-hardened girl learning to ride horses in an upper-crust, all-white country setting.  I’m not sure how appropriate it would be to read with my students, but there were plenty of tense, emotional moments that felt kind of magical to me.  It was like I couldn’t wait to finish the book and begin to write  about it.  If you ask me, we should offer our students more personal way to engage their writing.   

Below, I write about Mary Gatiskill’s novel The Mare and a non-fiction book chronicling the intense love affair between Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.  The living, breathing passion on these pages captured my imagination and inspired me to write.  Technology, says me,  may deaden our sensibilities.  No one really thinks beyond the palm of their hand.