Process Analysis in Richard Selzers Essay The Knife

Process Analysis in Richard Selzers Essay The Knife An accomplished surgeon and a professor of surgery, Richard Selzer is also one of Americas most celebrated essayists. When I put down the scalpel and picked up a pen, he once wrote, I reveled in letting go. The following paragraphs from The Knife, an essay in Selzers first collection, Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery  (1976), vividly describe the process of the laying open of the body of a human being. Selzer calls the pen the distant cousin of the knife. He once said to author and artist Peter Josyph, Blood and ink, at least in my hands, have a certain similarity. When you use a scalpel, blood is shed; when you use a pen, ink is spilled. Something is let in each of these acts (Letters to a Best Friend  by Richard Selzer, 2009). from "The Knife"* by Richard Selzer A stillness settles in my heart and is carried to my hand. It is the quietude of resolve layered over fear. And it is this resolve that lowers us, my knife and me, deeper and deeper into the person beneath. It is an entry into the body that is nothing like a caress; still, it is among the gentlest of acts. Then stroke and stroke again, and we are joined by other instruments, hemostats and forceps, until the wound blooms with strange flowers whose looped handles fall to the sides in steely array. There is sound, the tight click of clamps fixing teeth into severed blood vessels, the snuffle and gargle of the suction machine clearing the field of blood for the next stroke, the litany of monosyllables with which one prays his way down and in: clamp, sponge, suture, tie, cut. And there is color. The green of the cloth, the white of the sponges, the red and yellow of the body. Beneath the fat lies the fascia, the tough fibrous sheet encasing the muscles. It must be sliced and the red beef of the muscles separated. Now there are retractors to hold apart the wound. Hands move together, part, weave. We are fully engaged, like children absorbed in a game or the craftsmen of some place like Damascus. Deeper still. The peritoneum, pink and gleaming and membranous, bulges into the wound. It is grasped with forceps, and opened. For the first time we can see into the cavity of the abdomen. Such a primitive place. One expects to find drawings of buffalo on the walls. The sense of trespassing is keener now, heightened by the worlds light illuminating the organs, their secret colors revealedmaroon and salmon and yellow. The vista is sweetly vulnerable at this moment, a kind of welcoming. An arc of the liver shines high and on the right, like a dark sun. It laps over the pink sweep of the stomach, from whose lower border the gauzy omentum is draped, and through which veil one sees, sinuous, slow as just-fed snakes, the indolent coils of the intestine. You turn aside to wash your gloves. It is a ritual cleansing. One enters this temple doubly washed. Here is man as microcosm, representing in all his parts the earth, perhaps the universe.    * The Knife, by Richard Selzer, appears in the essay collection Mortal Lessons: Notes on the Art of Surgery, originally published by Simon Schuster in 1976, reprinted by Harcourt in 1996.

ESL Curriculum Planning for Teaching English

ESL Curriculum Planning for Teaching English This curriculum plan for non-trained teachers of ESL/EFL focuses on building a program for your class or private students. The first part focuses on the basics of ESL. There are a few important aspects to always keep in mind while developing any curriculum, be it only a few lessons or a full course: Language skills need to be recycled many times before they are actively acquired.All language skills (reading, writing, speaking, and listening) should be involved in the learning process.Understanding grammar rules does not necessarily mean that a student can use that grammar, as students need to actively practice skills they are learning. Language Recycling An acquired language needs to be repeated in a various number of guises before it can be actively used by the student. Studies have shown that new linguistic functions need to be repeated at least six times before most learners can consider the new piece of language theirs. After six repetitions, the newly-acquired language skills are usually still only passively activated. The learner will require more repetitions before he or she will be able to use the skills actively in everyday conversation. Here is an example of language recycling using the present simple: Work on the present simple rules.Read an article about the daily routines of someone.Listen to someone who describes his or her daily tasks.Have a discussion asking him or her to describe what he or she does on a daily basis. Use All Four Skills Employing all four linguistic skills (reading, writing, listening, and speaking) when working through a lesson will help you recycle language during the lesson. Learning rules are important, but, in my opinion, practicing the language is even more important. Bringing all these aspects into a lesson will add variety to the lesson and help the learner pragmatically practice the language. Ive met many learners who can knock off a grammar sheet without a mistake and then  when asked, Could you describe your sister? they have problems. This is generally due to the emphasis in many school systems for learning grammar. Putting It All Together So, now you understand the basic tenets of teaching English effectively. You might be asking yourself the question what do I teach? When planning a course, most coursebooks build their curriculum around certain themes that help glue everything together. While this can be rather complicated, I would like to provide a simple example that develops the present simple and past simple. Use this type of outline to build your lesson and remember to provide a number of elements, including listening, reading, writing, and speaking. You will find that your lessons have a  purpose and specific objectives which are clearly definable, like helping you and your learners recognize the progress you are making. Who are you? What do you do? (Daily routines)A present simple example: What do you do? I work at Smiths. I get up at seven, etc.To be present example: Im married. Shes thirty-four.Descriptive adjectives example: I am tall. He is short.Tell me about your past. Where did you go on your last holiday?A past simple example: Where did you go on holiday when you were a child?To be past example: The weather was fantastic.Irregular verbs example: Go - went; Shine - shone Finally, the lesson generally will be divided into three principal sections. Introduction:  Introducing or reviewing grammar or function.Development: Taking that grammar and working on it in reading, listening, and other forms. This section should make up the bulk of your lesson and include a number of different activities, if possible.​Review: Review the principle concepts covered during the lesson. This can be very straightforward and either student or teacher-led, depending on the level of your learners.