写作

女儿的英语老师要求家长就她的作文以信函的形式写评论。她的期末写作包括散文，诗歌，暑假读书报告等。写这封信为了鼓励女儿，也趁机插进一点儿自己对写作的心得和感受。

亲爱的女儿：

费了好大劲才看完了你写的几首诗和两篇散文。坦率地说，就我有限的英文水平，无法完全理解你写的内容。既然你们老师的建议家长提意见，甚至可以就你的作文给你写一封信，爸爸觉得建议很好，借此可以多谈一谈我的看法。

你写文章很快，这我在平日就能看出来，甚至是在写中文也是如此。文章写的快的人有两个长处，一是记忆力好，二是语言掌握的好，表达力强。因为记忆力好，手头的资料多，细节清楚，引言等等随手掂来。也是因为记忆力好，手头资料多，不愁没有东西往里添。也是因为记忆好，资料多，因此题材就多，更有创造性。正象你自己在辩析自己写作的学习过程中讲到的，你喜欢不拘泥与题目，喜欢自由发挥，在课外来写。你写文章文章也有点儿象你平日说话，单刀直入，自由的表现自己。至于第二点，就不用多说了。语言是表达思想的工具，工具用的熟练，工作效率就高。词汇量大，表现的方法方式就多，文章就比较活泼。

我看一篇文章象一棵树，它有树干（主题），几个主要树叉（论点或要点），若干小枝，很多的树叶和繁多的鲜花（论据细节和内容）。你的文章是一棵棵快速长大的树，有坚实的主干，长的很好的分枝，繁茂漂亮的枝叶和花朵。我记得你小学时写的文章也很快，但是有不少象枝繁叶茂的高大灌木。你现在写的文章主题清楚，全文紧扣主题，没有什么铺陈，很高兴你的写作这几年有了很大进步。

我自己写文章喜欢精干和高度的概括，而且我不喜欢重复,但是我的树需要较多的叶和花。谁会喜欢一棵树干很直，支干很平衡发展，但叶子很少没有什么花朵的树？不错，花叶过多会遮住枝干，但是花叶多了可以修剪，总比没有花和叶好很多。而且，在自然界，许多叶子和花朵又是长在同一个小枝上，这同用自己的语言将许多论据串起来是一个道理。但是，这需要平衡，太高度概括的文章不容易看懂，传递的信息太少，文章会干巴巴的，缺乏说服力。

但是，一篇散文毕竟不是一棵树。虽然，题目可以帮助读者知道作者要说什么，读者不读完文章还是不知道树的全貌。实际上，读一篇文章就像一个电影特写镜头慢慢从树根和树干向上摇，逐渐让读者看到枝叶和花朵。因此，镜头在向人们显示树的枝叶和花朵时，有时需要穿插着显示一下树干和主支，让人们知道电影在说什么。也就是说，读者可以在文章段落中偶尔再提醒读者主题或文章的主要思想是什么，尤其是较长的文章。这就要求不怕用不同的变化方式重复主题。我在你暑假读书报告草稿中确实看到有这样的成分。

你的写作心得和感受写的很好。我特别喜欢阅读个人感受和成长的故事。撰写作文与写科学报告很不同，科学或项目报告主要是为了传递信息，但作文有更多的文学成分。后者需要有更多的激情和情感以及文字的优美要求。关于你的暑假读书报告，我喜欢你挑选的主题“权欲会遮掩潜在的危险”。的确，权欲会让人作出不理智的决策，最后断送了自己的前程，甚至陪上了性命。你的报告语言流畅，我看的很明白，非常好。

随着年岁的增长，一个人总想要用不同的风格写作。我能看到出你写的诗歌有比和兴的成分，它们不象说话那么直接，正象你在你的诗和你对写诗的写作体会中反映的那样。我希望我能够欣赏英文诗，然而我只是一个古体诗歌的爱好者。我无法欣赏现代中国诗歌，就更别提现代风格的英文诗了。中国古代诗歌有特殊形式和韵律，还有特定的字数。当然，我喜欢诗的间接和多样表达方式以及文字的优美。更重要的是，似乎没有其他的写作方式更能表达一个人的情感和感觉，这正是诗的文学之美。

祝你写作更有成就！

Lydia's English teacher suggested that the parents make comments in a form of a letter to her on her writing project, which includes essays, poems, and summer reading reports. It is a good opportunity not only to encourage and praise her writings, but also to convey my writing philosophy and reflection on general writing an essay.

Dear Lydia,

It takes me a while to finish reading you English portfolio project. Frankly, I was not able to comprehend your entire portfolio completely with my limited English language capacity.

I agree with you that you are a fast writer. The fast writer needs to have two strengths: (1) a good memory so a collection of many facts are at hand; (2) master of the writing language and rich vocabulary so that able to put ideas in writing and expanded them. You have those strengths. Those strengths also enable you to pick different ideas and be creative. For example, when you said you would like to write poem by you own, not in class, it would give you more room to create your own writing. Much like when you speak, you like express your thoughts freely.

I see an essay as a tree. A tree consists of a trunk (topic), a few main branches (major ideas or supporting points), and many small branches, leaves, and flowers (facts and supporting details). Your writing is like a quick growing tree with a strong trunk, well developed main branches, and beautiful leaves and flowers. I remember some of your elementary school essays were like tall bushes, full of branches, leaves, and flowers. I am very happy that you have advance so much in writing today.

I myself like concise writing and highly summarized writing. However, my writing needs more flowers and leaves. Who would like to see a tree with well balanced trunk, branches, but few leaves and flowers? Trees need to have a lot of leaves and flowers to be liked. True, too many leaves may block the view of the where the branches or trunks are. But all you need to do is just to space the leaves and small branches somewhat. Also, in nature many leaves and flowers share a small branch and many small branches share a large major branch. Organizing some facts under your own words is like sharing many leaves and flowers on a small branch. This needs some balance, though, because too short and highly summarized writings may convey too little information and be hard to understand, too dry, and not convincing or persuasive.

But an essay in the end is not a tree. Readers do not see the whole picture of the tree until finishing the reading. So reading an essay is like a close-shooting camera taking detailed videos starting from the trunk and gradually move up to branches and leaves and flowers. When there are many leaves and flowers, the readers need to be reminded of the main theme or ideas of the essay. Therefore, it would be nice occasionally on the way the camera shows the trunk and main branches again and again. This is important especially for a long essay. I did see this element in your summer book report drafts.

Your reflection on your own writing is a good piece of writing. I enjoy reading things about personal feeling and growth. The different style of writing a science report and an English essay is important to known. A science or project report is mainly to communicate, but an English essay has more ingredients and quality. The latter requires more passion and feeling from your heart, and it also demand nice words, vocabularies, and beautiful writing style. As to the summer reading summary, I like the theme “desire of power blind the characters of dangers “. With too strong desire for power, one would run risk of making irrational decision. One could lose his future, even his life. The latest draft flows smoothly and I understand it well. That’s very good.

As one grows older, he or she would want to write in different way. I can see you become writing things more indirectly. That is how it has been reflected in your poems and your reflection about writing poems. I wish I could enjoy reading English poems. My background makes me an ancient Chinese poem lover. I could never get into even the Chinese poems in modern style. Ancient Chinese poems are in particular form, each row having a certain number of characters and they rhyme in certain way. I like poems in general nevertheless, because they don’t say things directly, as you said, and also because there are different nice ways and words to say the same thing. More importantly, there is no other writing than poems to better express one’s feelings and emotions. That’s the beauty of the poem literature.