Today I was so proud of one of my students who doesn't usually get excited about writing. Last week I gave him a section from Tolstoy to read, thinking the extraordinarily vivid writing would startle him and draw him in. After we had read it aloud together he said to me, "Usually when I read something, I can't see it - but when I read this, I could see everything happening! It was amazing!" Next week he wrote a really beautiful page on what he liked about the excerpt, with the first really descriptive words he has used in a while, and some apposite quotes. We were both so happy.
Enthusiasm...