如何提高孩子的英文写作能力？从儿子的林肯简传说起

我在去年八月写到，儿子（Frank）上八年级，数学一直不错，但英文感觉不太强。在疫情之下，孩子的学习非常依赖于父母的辅导，像数学和科学，对我们来说，做孩子的老师，似乎游刃有余。但是英文，对我们来说，本身就是第二语言，语法还懂一些，要教孩子写出生动有趣、文采斐然的文章，困难不小。

有一次跟一个纽约的老朋友聊到担心孩子的英文写作，他给我推荐了一个华二代陈曦（Jane Chen）和她的“爱”写作中心。Jane是他朋友的女儿，从小就特别优秀，2014年毕业于哈佛大学，此后从事金融投资行业多年，但是她内心挚爱一直都是写作。2020年初，她跟朋友一起，成立了这个写作中心，以一支哈佛打造的专业团队，来培养4-12年级的学生，提高他们的英文写作能力。

Jane的写作中心的英文名字是Eyre Writing Center，可以简称为EWC。Jane说名字里的“Eyre”是为了表达对《简爱》（Jane Eyre）这本书的敬意，发音为“ AIR”！她认为，强大的写作能力是成为强大的思想者的基础。清晰的写作和思考能力不仅是通识教育的必要条件，也是我们立足于美国社会所不可或缺的能力。这就是她放弃高薪的华尔街工作，成立这个教育中心的原因。

为了帮助我了解“爱”写作中心和她的学生，Jane介绍了几篇学生写的短文。我读了以后，觉得真心不错，马上把她的email转给我太太，我们一起听了免费公开课之后，立即就给儿子报名参加2020秋季学期课程。下面这个免费公开课广告是为即将开始的2021冬季学期准备的。

我们根据儿子的学年，选了适合他的入门150课（Intro 150）。总共10个礼拜，我们选的是每个礼拜天下午的课，Frank每周还要完成不少作业。在期末的一对一家长见面会上，Jane说Frank取得了长足的进步。她拿出一段Frank写的段落，给我们进行了详细的分析，哪里是写得好的，哪里还需要提高。在征求了儿子的意见之后，我们打算下学期继续给他选入门250课。

最近我跟Jane说，我想在我们公众号上给读者推荐她的“爱”写作中心，让她提供几篇学生的短文，跟大家分享。她说我儿子写的简短传记《伟大的解放者：亚伯拉罕·林肯》挺好的，我拿来读了读，短短的一篇，把林肯的身世、背景、个性和成就写得清清楚楚。说老实话，林肯是我最敬仰的美国历史人物，看到儿子也这么了解林肯，我很开心。下面就是这篇简传。

The Great Emancipator: Abraham Lincoln

A Short Biography

By Frank Yin

On February 12th, 1809, near Hodgenville Kentucky, the 16th President of the United States was born. His name was Abraham Lincoln. His father, Thomas Lincoln owned a farm, and since Lincoln was always busy working on the farm as a child, he rarely had any education. Despite this, Lincoln had a yearning to read books whenever he could. His family and friends knew that he was very smart and was glued to any books he could get his hands on. As a child, Lincoln’s family would move often and Lincoln would take up many different jobs. However, Lincoln was sick of the farming lifestyle, which later influenced him to start his political career. In Illinois, Lincoln became a lawyer to study the law, and in 1837, Lincoln became a very successful, fair, and honest lawyer. Five years later, Lincoln married Mary Todd, with whom he had four children. Tragically, three of them died in their childhoods, and only one managed to live to be an adult. 

In Lincoln’s early political career, he was associated with a political party known as the Whigs. From 1834 to 1840, Lincoln was elected as a member of the Illinois State Legislature. As a Republican, Lincoln ran against Stephen A. Douglas for the Senate. Lincoln lost that race, and he was furious with the results. However, after much turmoil in1860, Lincoln was elected president, which caused the anti-slavery and pro-slavery states to split into the Union (The North) and the Confederacy (The South), respectively.

Eventually, this conflict led to the Civil War between the two groups. However, Lincoln was determined to preserve the Union and abolish slavery, and so he went on to pass the Emancipation Proclamation that declared that slaves should be freed in 1863. That same year, Lincoln gave his famous speech, the Gettysburg Address, to address the Union that the war was worth all of the sacrifice, and that the soldiers, who sacrificed their lives, would die in vain if they did not defeat the Confederacy. Although Lincoln was frustrated by the progress of the generals that commanded the U.S. army, in1864, Lincoln found the perfect general for the job, Ulysses S. Grant. In 1865, Robert E. Lee, the notorious general of the Confederacy, surrendered, and the Civil War was finally over.

The Confederacy had surrendered unconditionally under the leadership of Abraham Lincoln. Reconstruction began immediately following the end of the war, and slavery was abolished.  Lincoln sought to reunite the United States by creating a plan to have the seceded states pledge loyalty to the United States. However, he did not live to complete his second term as president: in 1865, he was shot in Ford’s Theatre by John Wilkes Booth. The next morning, The Great Emancipator died. Lincoln’s contribution to racial equality and the preservation of the Union has impacted us tremendously. Without his unwavering leadership, our world today simply would not be the same.

另外一个学生Dorothy，也是入门班的，她写的《我的愿望》，各种内心活动，从对祖父母的思念，到对环境保护的思考，写得细腻感人又有深度，我也很喜欢。

Wishes

By Dorothy Zheng

My aquamarine floatie struggles to keep me afloat as my arms and legs flail about. The smile on my face slowly grows as I go deeper and deeper into the vast turquoise waters. Raindrops bounce off the ocean surface and fill the air with an unpleasant, dank odor. The waves seem like they are saying mischievously, “Go back home. It’s raining. You will get sick,” as they push everything closer to the shore with every slight movement.

I look over to the beach, just to see my parents and brother sitting on our rented beach chairs talking about “adult stuff”. I sigh, roll my eyes, and turn my attention back to having some fun. I wish my brother would come and swim with me. Or, even better, I wish that my grandparents were here with me. I roll over onto my back, squinting my eyes, as the rain attacks me with tiny, wet torpedoes and the waves make me feel sick. I wish that the rain and waves would stop ruining the moment. When they left in 2013 for China, they promised that they would come back. Five years have passed, and I miss them more than ever. I can only hope that they are doing well in heaven.

I start humming a tune my grandparents had always used to calm me down before I slept. A single tear slides down my face as I reach to touch the hat on my head that my grandma made for me. It was one of the last days before they left. I watched in awe as her wrinkly, callused fingers wove together long, frayed strands of string. She looked up and gave me a wide smile, dimples appearing in each cheek.

I gaze down into the murky waters once again. The ocean is such an amazing place: supportive yet frightening. When calm, the enchanting hues of green and blue are a sight that you wouldn’t want to miss.

However, if agitated, its rough, violent waves wouldn’t think twice to wreck ships and destroy everything in its path. The sea doesn’t like to be restrained. It seems as if the ocean is angry more often recently, probably since mankind is polluting its waters. The ocean provides us with endless resources but what do we give it back? Plastic and oil spills. As a result, beautiful fish and coral reefs ghostly white. It feels now as if the ocean is plotting its revenge, ready to swallow the land.

After a while of deep thinking, I hear a faint, “Dorothy! We have to go now!” I sit up and look over to the shore to see my brother waving his hands crazily, signaling for me to come back. I chuckle a little and yell back, “COMING!” and furiously paddle back to the shore. The waves crash down as they throw me onto the fine, white sand. It rudge up to my family’s beach chair, soaked in water.

“Dorothy, today we’re going to watch the fireworks at the New Years Party. Let’s go back to the hotel, and you can shower there,” my mom said, while packing up our things back into the beach bag. But the waters still reel me in, as if they want to tell me something. As if they are warning me that something will change my life in the near future. Something good or bad.

“AHHHHH! MY HAT!” I yell at an evil seagull, after it dives down and snatches my hat off my head effortlessly. I kick the sand angrily and a puff of sand goes up. The individual particles stick onto my wet legs. This doesn’t help my mood at all, if anything it just makes it worse. I mutter inaudible words that my parents would definitely not approve of. Weeks of my grandma’s hard work, snatched away forever in that seagull’s beak in mere seconds. I look over to see an evil glint in its eye, filled with hatred. Well, humans did just come barging into their habitat and start littering and trashing it up. I ponder the situation as I slowly drag my feet to go catch up to the rest of my family. We had some delicious-looking seafood for dinner, but I don’t really have an appetite whatsoever. Reluctantly, I join my family as we sit down on a relatively flat area on the rocks.

After what feels like centuries, the fireworks begin. “Boom, boom!” the fireworks cry out loud as they reach the sky. Cheers erupt from the crowd as bright lights and colors decorate the night sky. I am enjoying the fireworks like everyone else until I notice some gray fumes escaping from those beautiful lights. It dawns on me: they are huge amounts of CO2, the main culprit for climate change. I was first introduced to the concept of global warming during third grade while watching the news. I remember the grim expression that the reporter wore as she traced the sloping graph line that showed the increase in global temperature. I remember the looks of disgust on my parents’ faces as they switched the channeland muttered under their breath, “This is so stupid, such fake news.” I look back at my mom, who is busy snapping pictures with her phone.

“Mom, aren’t the fireworks bad for the environment?” I ask, furrowing my brows a little.

The wide grin melts off of her face as she turns to look at me. “Just look. If you don’t watch, it will be a waste,” my mom replies, sternly before she turns back around, admiring the fireworks once again. Wow, mom. Nobody that I know cares about the environment like I do. I feel Greta Thunberg’s pain, arguing with a bunch of government officials about an existential crisis their generation caused that is proven by science. Apparently, since we are “mere children”, everything that we say is false and shouldn’t be taken seriously.

The fireworks stream across the sky as the finale starts. Hundreds of shooting stars and a few smiley faces. The crowd roars even louder as the last firework goes up into the sky and pops. Silence. It’s over. I look into the distance and recognize many more places that are also setting off fireworks. This is just Hawaii, and it pains me to think of how many fireworks are being displayed across the globe and how much CO2 is being generated as a result. I turn back to look at the audience shuffling away with their families, laughing and discussing how amazing the show was.

Seeing the pure happiness and joy that the fireworks bring to so many people’s faces, I realize that maybe sacrifices have to be made to fulfill other things. Sometimes trade-offs have to be made, and sometimes things have negative sides to them. It would be amazing for people to stop setting off fireworks, but it would be practically impossible to convince this many people to stop wanting to watch them. Sometimes things don’t go to plan, and that’s okay. Sometimes you can’t get everything you wish for. Sometimes you can’t stop seagulls from stealing hats. No one can promise anything. But, you can still wish.

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