Reviewing the Arts

This book is actually Dr. Campbell Titchener's Feature Writing class lecture notes transcribed, and it is quite good. It's also useful for working newspaper folks to use as a reference book, to remind themselves, for instance, to include all the necessary components for a review of specific sorts of artistic endeavors.Dr. Titchener read aloud much student work in the class I took, and he pulled no punches in evaluating the results. There was one unfortunate woman who could not capably put one word in front of another, yet she bubbled constantly about what a great writer she intended to be, all the books and plays and articles she was going to author. Dr. Titchener one day pronounced her work "trite" (he was absolutely correct), and it was extremely amusing to see the woman's cluelessly dismissive reaction, her declaration that he was "an idiot."About three-fourths of the way into the semester, Dr. Titchener had an uncommon experience in his own life, and he wrote a short feature about it, which he read to the class. The response was brutal; students viciously ripped the piece up one page and down the other, and poor Dr. Titchener just sat there absorbing it all... sorta like body blows in a boxing match. He was the only college professor I ever encountered who had the guts to expose himself to an open-forum critique from his students, and you've really got to admire someone who has the fortitude to do that.