EDUCATION REFORM

bluefugate:

If I ran the GREs, I would require test-takers to write concise plot summaries of late James novels. It’s a skill that implies all sorts of other skills. There’s a good example embedded here. Maybe for the analytical writing section, the concise plot summaries could turn to haiku. For example:

Widower sent to/Paris on a grand mission/toothpicks, artifice

A precocious girl/a tonal shift halfway through/Yes, I know she knows

A sickly scion/alters all those proximate/deceit despite death 

Because I am obvious, untethered to notions of style or depth, lacking a rich interior or at the very least a history of roadside bummers, I’d reapply this theory with Joan Didion as text. I’m not one for deep cuts. The thoughts that tour my skull are simple, denatured. I am little more than a pleasure index and a small round stomach and grids of unfortunate hair.

The answer to every question would be “rattlesnakes.”