Barzun: Narrowing down my topic will be one of the primary things I will think about while choosing my research topic. This definitely seems like it could be a difficult parts of writing, and the author illustrates the predicament in many good examples.
Strunk and White, Introduction: I can definitely relate to the author's assertion that writing can be frustrating in that "what should be easy looks tangled or feeble or overblown." That is a common problem for me: my writing comes out much more convoluted than I picture it to be.
Strunk and White: This makes me want to read "the little book". Strunk's most important point seems to be that brevity is valuable.
In terms of my research topic, I would like to do something related to the following fields:
—beginning strings education for students in early elementary
— first experiences of ensemble playing for strings students in early elementary
— combinations of note-reading and learning by rote in the strings class
— jazz pedagogy for beginning strings
— improvisation for beginning strings
— Suzuki and how it can feed into alternative styles
— the Suzuki method and students from African American/ Latino backgrounds
All of these fields are interests because they are directly related to either what I'm currently doing at my school or what I would like to do with my program over the next few years. I hope to put together an annotated bibliography that will be very useful to me as I expand the instrumental program at my school.
Yes -- read "the little book" -- it's more enjoyable than one might think. In general the broader topics of yours "beginning strings education" or "jazz pedagogy" are more likely to yield the appropriate size bib than the more specific "first experiences of ensemble playing", etc. But that doesn't mean that you can't do them -- rather that you might need to think of some creative ways to fill out your topic.
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