In 1997, after 28 years of teaching high school English in New York City's public school system, Frank McCourt received a Pulitzer Prize for his first book, the memoir Angela's Ashes. Since then his story of growing up miserably poor in Limerick, Ireland, has been adapted into a feature film and translated into more than 30 languages.
McCourt died on July 19 after a battle with melanoma. He was 78.
In chapter six of Teacher Man, McCourt's third and final volume of memoirs, he recounts a lesson he learned from the excuses written by his students on their parents' behalf. "Isn't it remarkable," he says, how students "resist any kind of writing assignment in class or at home. . . . But when they forge these excuse notes they're brilliant."
That realization led him to create a new writing assignment, one that proved to be both popular and productive. Go home, he told his students, and compose "an excuse note from Adam (or Eve) to God."
McCourt claimed that his class at McKee Vocational and Technical High School was "the first in the world ever to study the art of the excuse note, the first class, ever, to practice writing them.” And he had no trouble justifying the assignment to the superintendent of schools. "I realized there was enough material in human history for millions of excuse notes. Sooner or later, everyone needs an excuse."
With a nod and a wink of farewell, here are a few more of Frank McCourt's observations on writing and the teaching of writing.
- The Magic of Writing
I always wanted to write because for me it was magic to get a piece of paper and put words on it. As I'm always saying, to put together words that were never before put together by anybody. To take two words that were never joined together like a "scintillating turnip." I would put words together like that just to keep the language fresh.
(Frank McCourt Interview, The Academy of Achievement, June 19, 1999) - Finding His Voice in Angela's Ashes
After 20 pages of standard omniscient author, I wrote something that I thought was just a note to myself, about sitting on a seesaw in a playground, and I found my voice, the voice of a child. That was it. It carried me through to the end of the book.
(quoted in The Providence Journal, 1997) - Teaching Grammar
I had a sudden idea, a flash. Psychology is the study of the way people behave. Grammar is the study of the way language behaves. . . .
I pushed it. If someone acts crazy, the psychologist studies them to find out what's wrong. If someone talks in a funny way and you can't understand them, then you're thinking about grammar. Like, John store to the went.
So it's gibberish, right?
They liked that word and I patted myself on the back for bringing it to them, news from the vast world of the English language. Teaching is bringing the news. . . . They were beginning to understand what grammar was. If I kept at it I might understand it myself.
The study of the way language behaves.
No stopping me now. I said, Store the to went John. Does that make sense? Of course not. So you see, you have to have words in their proper order. Proper order means meaning and if you don't have meaning you're babbling and the men in the white coats come and take you away. They stick you in the gibberish department of Bellevue. That's grammar.
(Frank McCourt, Teacher Man, Scribner, 2005) - Teaching and Learning
You can teach biology and origami and how to skin a rabbit but I don't think you can teach creative writing. You can hint and nudge and inspire and encourage. You can help aspiring writers in their search for their material, their style. . . . What I learned, most of all, was that if you're teaching and not learning then you're not teaching, and if you don't enjoy yourself in the classroom, you might as well be driving a taxi.
(Frank McCourt, "Reflections on Creative Writing Class," The New York Times, April 14, 2002) - Follow Your Bliss
I found out eventually why I was put on this earth. I was put on this earth to write. And as Thomas Carlyle said, "Happy is the man who has found his work." So I'm happy, and I hope everybody else finds that, too.
(Frank McCourt Interview, The Academy of Achievement, June 19, 1999)
A memorial service for Frank McCourt is planned for September--at the start of the new school year.
More Writers on Writing:
- Toni Morrison on Writing
- Mark Twain on Words and Wordiness
- Joyce Carol Oates on Writing: "Don't Give Up"
Image: Teacher Man by Frank McCourt (Scribner, 2005)
Comments
I´m an Argentinian teacher. I taught English at high schools in Buenos Aires until I retired 4 years ago. I´ve admired Frank Mc Court since I read Angela´s Ashes, he is my hero. Why? Because I actually felt understood by him, this Teacher Man. That´s all any human being, students included, should get. Thanks for his words. I regret not trying to meet him when I went to New York. I´ll send your article to my colleagues.
I cried on that book.
His book was the first English book I read, after I read it in hungarian many times. I am sad he died.
My thanks for this article. I seen on the news some of Frank’s life and writings, but this drew more attention to his excellent manner of sharing himself by putting the effort into being understood by others.
I actually desired to share this post, _Remembering
Frank McCourt, “Teacher Man”_ with my own good friends on facebook.
I actuallyonly desired to distributed ur excellent writing!
Thx, Rebbeca