From: Dean Schneider <schneiderd>
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 2002 21:12:10 -0500

It's nice to see Elizabeth Partridge's This Land Was Made for You and Me getting such a great response. It's a fantastic book -- well written, attractively designed, and important. What a nice one-two punch it makes with Partridge's Restless Spirit, about Dorothea Lange. Restless Spirit is a cornerstone of a project I do on the Dust Bowl/Depression era. We read Out of the Dust, Of Mice and Men, and Restless Spirit. Students write poems based on Out of the Dust and on some of the Dorothea Lange photographs. We used the National Archives to find additional photographs. And in the works for next year is an additional angle: the art of Maynard Dixon, Dorothea's first husband and fine western artist. Elizabeth Partridge has visited my class and discussed Dorothea Lange, her photographic techniques, and she played some of Woody's music. See www.elizabethpartridge.com for my article about the project (at Restless Spirit/Dorothea and John Steinbeck)and Partridge's article in Book Links magazine: May 1999.

 Now, we have This Land Was Made for You and Me as another dimension to the story. Just think of the discussions of Woody's life, music, politics, etc. Literature, writing, art, music, radical politics -- what education is all about! As Marc Aronson says, the heavily illustrated nonfiction book is one of the great art forms of our time; and Partridge's book is a fine example of the form.

Dean Schneider Ensworth School Nashville, TN 37205 schneiderd at ensworth.com
Received on Mon 29 Apr 2002 09:12:10 PM CDT