The little red schoolhouse

In my writing practice, a major skill I’m trying to learn is how to see my writing from the reader’s perspective. This focus was spurred on mostly by a couple videos from Larry McEnerney.

A few days ago I found someone else with a reader-centered focus, George Gopen, who wrote a book of tweets I am now attempting to absorb. While watching one of his videos again I realized he sounded a lot like Larry McEnerney.

So I looked up Larry again and found an article in which he reflects on something called The Little Red Schoolhouse at the University of Chicago. The Little Red Schoolhouse was a program founded by Joseph M. Williams and Gregory Colomb.

Those names sounded familiar. In fact, they are two of three names Gopen credits when talking about his own views on rhetoric. So I looked up Joseph Williams and Gregory Colomb, found a book called Style: Towards Clarity and Grace that they worked on together and found an acknowledgements page that included both Larry McEnerney and George Gopen.

It all links back to The Little Red Schoolhouse.

It’s funny, because I find myself wanting to figure out who originated these ideas. But really, it was the discussion that originated the ideas and each participant has put their own particular spin on them.