Midterm

Name

Instructor 's Name

English 115

March 8 , 2008

Essay

The approach of the two , Charles Baxter for Gryphon ' and Raymond Carver for Cathedral , is on the stimulation of the reader 's imagination to enhance the learning process

Gryphon is a short story which was originally published in Baxter 's collection of short stories Through the Safety Net . The story was well-received and has since been featured in numerous other texts including American Short Stories (7th edition , The Best American Short Stories in 1986 , and Modern Fiction About

School Teaching Gryphon was then made into a film by PBS and was read on Chicago 's WBEZ radio station

A gryphon was an imaginary creature , half eagle and half lion . In other words , a gryphon was made up of parts from the world , but these parts were combined in to create a new , imaginary thing that did not exist in the world until someone would think of it or widen his imagination . Mrs . Ferenczi felt that young people should be exposed to exotic facts and possibility of this sort . And it is possible to read the story with Mrs . Ferenczi as something of a gryphon herself--half in this world , a world of concrete objects , and half out-of-this-world , a world of pure fiction . At one point in the story , Mrs . Ferenczi suggested to the class that they would consider the notion that "six times eleven equals sixty-eight as a substitute fact " According to Baxter , sometimes "substitute facts " are simply wrong or incorrect , but sometimes they are products of myth or of the imagination . Mrs . Ferenczi would like to expose the students to amazing facts (some of which were true , some of which were mythic , and some of which were simply untrue as a way of expanding their sense of wonder or imagination . Baxter used the imagination as a learning technique for kids to enhance their ability to differ reality from fiction

Imagination is the ability to form mental images or the ability to spontaneously generate images within one 's own mind . It helps provide meaning to experience and understanding to knowledge . Listening to storytelling is a basic training for the imagination as in listening to Baxter 's Gryphon ' as told by teachers or seen and heard on film Imagination can be expressed through stories such as fairy tales or fantasies /fiction . Famous inventions or entertainment products were created from the inspiration of one 's imagination

Raymond Carver 's Cathedral ' is also a learning approach through the imagination as experienced by the characters in the story . Even a blind man could conceptualize what a cathedral looked like in this story . He was even better at guiding the husband draw the cathedral even if he had not seen a cathedral but just heard it described on TV . By not having eyes for learning , he compensated this thru a widened imagination of things which were real by using the other senses like the sense of hearing and the sense of touch . Sensory stimulation...