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Colorado with the Moodys


fiery redhead

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If anyone is looking for a somewhat more realistic (and more exciting) YA book involving hiking/camping, may I recommend "Sammy Keyes and the Wild Things"? Realistic dialogue! No bible tracts! Blisters - with reasons for their occurrence and reasons to not have a first aid kit! 

 

But you know, liberal propaganda about endangered species and girls wearing sneakers and pants, so it's clearly evil. 

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The really sad thing about this is that Steve doesn't care if Sarah's a terrible writer. All that matters is the message. How it's delivered is unimportant. So we get this oh-so-perfect, completely unrealistic and unbelievable family that's supposed to be held up and imitated as a model of godly behavior and…that's it. Granted, some of the negative reviews on Amazon might have been a tad harsh—although not unwarranted—but with all of the comments on how poorly constructed the story was and how stilted the writing plus the many suggestions for how Sarah could improve, the ONLY comment Steve addressed was the one that talked about the grammatical errors…and Steve promptly threw the "proofreaders" under the bus. So Sarah's writing will never improve because there's neither a will nor a way.

Sarah's video was just as painful as her writing. Harsh, unflattering lighting aside, her delivery was awkward and unnatural, and she came off like a shy, uncomfortable teenager instead of a confident woman of nearly 33. Oh and Sarah, my best friend? My sister. She's my friend, my confidante, and my rock and vice versa. Our relationship grew organically and sincerely, not because we were isolated and forced into a "friendship," but because we truly grew to love, respect and trust one another. Get out more and you'll see just how many brothers and sisters are like that, even without Jesus. Oh, wait…

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I have decided that Grandma Maude is an excellent hiker for her age.... Or at least she will be after I finish my day job.... Stay tuned, folks, another episode of this is coming. I can feel this scene having some serious potential.

 

 

 

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I took the paragraph starting with "the lady suppressed a smile" to "...wondered who discovered the area. and put it in a "readability calculator"

http://www.online-utility.org/english/readability_test_and_improve.jsp

 

Number of characters (without spaces) : 873.00
Number of words : 194.00
Number of sentences : 21.00
Average number of characters per word : 4.50
Average number of syllables per word : 1.40
Average number of words per sentence: 9.24

 

Indication of the number of years of formal education that a person requires in order to easily understand the text on the first reading
Gunning Fog index : 5.34

 

Approximate representation of the U.S. grade level needed to comprehend the text :  
Coleman Liau index : 7.46
Flesch Kincaid Grade level : 4.56  
ARI (Automated Readability Index) : 4.38  
SMOG : 7.31  

 

Flesch Reading Ease : 78.84

List of sentences which we suggest you should consider to rewrite to improve readability of the text :

  • â Max fell into place behind Mitch, and as the trail climbed steadily, they didnât talk but saved their breath.
  • You all can keep several blister pads, because with a wet sock, you might get on yourself.
  • Max stared at the rugged hillside and wondered who discovered the area.
  • Iâm trying to ignore my wet feet, and maybe if Iâm the leader, itâll help me to forget.
  • â After choosing a few extra blister pads, Dad returned the pack to Carmen.
  • As they continued to gain altitude, the trees thinned, and the sun felt warm.
  • They stopped to put sweatshirts in backpacks, and Dad consulted the map.

The Gunning Fog index is based on US grade level so it says it is at 5th grade about 2-3 months into school. The Flesch Kincaid is also based on US grade level and it puts it at 4th grade mid way. Then I went to my Word readability (word options | proofing | show readability stats) it rates it at a 3.3. It reads very literal, no imagination. Very sad. Funny with each test the readability goes lower and lower :)

If you have a scholastic account - go look at Cam Jansen (it shows a preview) for the young Cam Jansen book about baseball. That book is geared towards grades 1-2 and has A LOT more action and fun than this chapter.

I love all the suggestions this website suggested the author should rewrite to improve readability. :Bazinga:

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I have decided that Grandma Maude is an excellent hiker for her age.... Or at least she will be after I finish my day job.... Stay tuned, folks, another episode of this is coming. I can feel this scene having some serious potential.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

YES! I was hoping another Trynn counterpoint rewrite would be in the offing!

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Let me guess... "the neighbour lady Mrs. Tad" finds Jeebus, but the "deer named Fred" does not because animals do not have souls and therefore will go to hell; but do *you* know where *YOU* will go when **YOU** will die?!

And why is Mrs. Tad not Ms. Tad? As if her identity is all about who she is married to - or not.

 

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A public library would really piss Steve off, but a public school library would probably give him a heart attack.

But, would most public schools keep it in their library?  The sample is pretty poorly written.  And around here, most books donated to the library are sold at their annual used book sale. 

I wonder if selling it for 3 cents on Amazon would be more amusing, though it would be a pain in the ass.

I bought a couple of Moody books on Amazon for $ .01. Can't imagine why anyone would bother to sell them, given the cost of shipping. Donated them to the local library's used book sale--pretty sure they ended up being recycled and pulped. 

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A public library would really piss Steve off, but a public school library would probably give him a heart attack.

But, would most public schools keep it in their library?  The sample is pretty poorly written.  And around here, most books donated to the library are sold at their annual used book sale. 

I wonder if selling it for 3 cents on Amazon would be more amusing, though it would be a pain in the ass.

I bought a couple of Moody books on Amazon for $ .01. Can't imagine why anyone would bother to sell them, given the cost of shipping. Donated them to the local library's used book sale--pretty sure they ended up being recycled and pulped. 

I buy tons of used books, especially cookbooks—all in fantastic condition for pennies, on Amazon. Most sellers charge $3.99 for shipping, but since it ships at media mail rate, there's still some profit.

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The really sad thing about this is that Steve doesn't care if Sarah's a terrible writer. All that matters is the message. How it's delivered is unimportant. So we get this oh-so-perfect, completely unrealistic and unbelievable family that's supposed to be held up and imitated as a model of godly behavior and…that's it. Granted, some of the negative reviews on Amazon might have been a tad harsh—although not unwarranted—but with all of the comments on how poorly constructed the story was and how stilted the writing plus the many suggestions for how Sarah could improve, the ONLY comment Steve addressed was the one that talked about the grammatical errors…and Steve promptly threw the "proofreaders" under the bus. So Sarah's writing will never improve because there's neither a will nor a way.

Yes, Sarah has been basically intellectually stunted by her sheltered upbringing. For all we know, if she had been exposed to actual examples of good writing and allowed to think about the world more deeply, she might be capable of writing a book that even adults would be interested in, rather than having to settle for writing very simplistic stories for young kids. I consider the way that a lot of fundies intentionally suppress their children's intellectual growth to be a form of neglect. 

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I thought of Sarah's Moody books tonight as I read my daughter the Frog and Toad stories for bedtime. The prose is simple, mostly one- and two-syllable words, but the emotions are real, there's humor both broad and sly, conflicts have stakes, and the characters ring true. It's absolutely possible to write a sophisticated story on a child's level. At the moment Sarah just doesn't have the tools to do it.

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After reading that I need to go apologize to my daughter. She is 12 and taking a creative writing class from a very LDS teacher. They had to write a Halloween story and choose either physical or emotional fears. Almost all the kids choose physical and were trapped in a room or running from a ghost. The stories were very stereotypical and not much creativity. My daughter choose the emotional fear route and after doing a bunch of internet research on mental illness  wrote a very detailed psychological  thriller. I told her she should have toned it down and made it simple  for her sweet LDS teacher. After reading 34? year old Sarah's writing , I'm glad my daughter has an imagination and access to the internet for research.

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A public library would really piss Steve off, but a public school library would probably give him a heart attack.

But, would most public schools keep it in their library?  The sample is pretty poorly written.  And around here, most books donated to the library are sold at their annual used book sale. 

I wonder if selling it for 3 cents on Amazon would be more amusing, though it would be a pain in the ass.

I bought a couple of Moody books on Amazon for $ .01. Can't imagine why anyone would bother to sell them, given the cost of shipping. Donated them to the local library's used book sale--pretty sure they ended up being recycled and pulped. 

I buy tons of used books, especially cookbooks—all in fantastic condition for pennies, on Amazon. Most sellers charge $3.99 for shipping, but since it ships at media mail rate, there's still some profit.

If you sell on Amazon, you get a $3.99 shipping credit from Amazon, which if you sell items under less than about $11, will cover the fee and then some.  It's possible to make some money.

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Wow.  

First of all, who (besides for snark purposes) would ever ask for a tract? Are you kidding me? In all of my years as a Christian as soon as I've been handed one, if I allowed it to get that far, it was in the nearest garbage can. 

Secondly, poor Sarah. I'm confident that a four year old could tell a more dynamic story than what I just read. 

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The sound of the stream grew louder as they hiked until they finally reached it.

WOW! REALLY??? Things get louder the closer you get to them???? Jee willikers I did not know this. This little bit is description really resonated with me emotionally. 

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The really sad thing about this is that Steve doesn't care if Sarah's a terrible writer. All that matters is the message. How it's delivered is unimportant. So we get this oh-so-perfect, completely unrealistic and unbelievable family that's supposed to be held up and imitated as a model of godly behavior and…that's it. Granted, some of the negative reviews on Amazon might have been a tad harsh—although not unwarranted—but with all of the comments on how poorly constructed the story was and how stilted the writing plus the many suggestions for how Sarah could improve, the ONLY comment Steve addressed was the one that talked about the grammatical errors…and Steve promptly threw the "proofreaders" under the bus. So Sarah's writing will never improve because there's neither a will nor a way.

Yes, Sarah has been basically intellectually stunted by her sheltered upbringing. For all we know, if she had been exposed to actual examples of good writing and allowed to think about the world more deeply, she might be capable of writing a book that even adults would be interested in, rather than having to settle for writing very simplistic stories for young kids. I consider the way that a lot of fundies intentionally suppress their children's intellectual growth to be a form of neglect. 

I'd call it outright abuse. They purposefully prevent their children from getting a proper, well-rounded education so that they can exert control over them and prevent them from having the skills to escape the other forms of abuse going on. The mind needs nourishment the same as the body to reach its full potential, and a parent who knowingly and purposefully denies a child education is, IMO, as horrible as a parent who denies a child food.

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If I were out camping and somebody handed me a tract, I'd ask for more too—because hey, extra kindling and these idiots carried it up the mountain for me!

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If I were out camping and somebody handed me a tract, I'd ask for more too—because hey, extra kindling and these idiots carried it up the mountain for me!

And if it's soft enough, TP.

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Wow, I'm only three sentences in and there's already a glaring dangling participle. (Or at least an incredibly vague and misleading participial phrase.)

For all of Steve and Teri's love of rules, you'd think they'd at least have drilled grammar and spelling into the kids.

 

Also, while walking to work today, I suddenly thought about how Sarah Maxwell is a 33 year old woman who has never read anything by William Shakespeare, not even a sonnet I bet, if S&T are censoring "Row, Row, Row Your Boat." Imagine that.  I wonder if she even knows the basics of what Romeo and Juliet is about? She's never read Charles Dickens, Mark Twain, or Jane Austen either. It must be so strange trying to have any sort of conversation with her. I wonder how many basic phrases and references that people use just go right over the Maxwell kids' heads?

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The really sad thing about this is that Steve doesn't care if Sarah's a terrible writer. All that matters is the message. How it's delivered is unimportant. So we get this oh-so-perfect, completely unrealistic and unbelievable family that's supposed to be held up and imitated as a model of godly behavior and…that's it. Granted, some of the negative reviews on Amazon might have been a tad harsh—although not unwarranted—but with all of the comments on how poorly constructed the story was and how stilted the writing plus the many suggestions for how Sarah could improve, the ONLY comment Steve addressed was the one that talked about the grammatical errors…and Steve promptly threw the "proofreaders" under the bus. So Sarah's writing will never improve because there's neither a will nor a way.

Yes, Sarah has been basically intellectually stunted by her sheltered upbringing. For all we know, if she had been exposed to actual examples of good writing and allowed to think about the world more deeply, she might be capable of writing a book that even adults would be interested in, rather than having to settle for writing very simplistic stories for young kids. I consider the way that a lot of fundies intentionally suppress their children's intellectual growth to be a form of neglect. 

I'd call it outright abuse. They purposefully prevent their children from getting a proper, well-rounded education so that they can exert control over them and prevent them from having the skills to escape the other forms of abuse going on. The mind needs nourishment the same as the body to reach its full potential, and a parent who knowingly and purposefully denies a child education is, IMO, as horrible as a parent who denies a child food.

I agree. The Maxwells seem to equate exposing their kids to things other than their family to hatred of God and their family. If they were such experts on education, wouldn't they let their kids find things out for themselves and then have a proper explanation? There is a difference between conservative and outright ignorant, and the Maxwell kids seem to have know idea of how reality works as a whole, even within the clientele they serve -- when Sarah said that snarky remark (yes Sarah! You were snarky and that is ok! Just think about what you mean....) about siblings, I thought that was odd considering her target audience. I think the fundy/Christian/homeschool/care-enough -about-their-kids-to-find-books-for-them Moms would at least believe that their children loved each other no matter how dysfunctional things could be. 

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The really sad thing about this is that Steve doesn't care if Sarah's a terrible writer. All that matters is the message. How it's delivered is unimportant. So we get this oh-so-perfect, completely unrealistic and unbelievable family that's supposed to be held up and imitated as a model of godly behavior and…that's it. Granted, some of the negative reviews on Amazon might have been a tad harsh—although not unwarranted—but with all of the comments on how poorly constructed the story was and how stilted the writing plus the many suggestions for how Sarah could improve, the ONLY comment Steve addressed was the one that talked about the grammatical errors…and Steve promptly threw the "proofreaders" under the bus. So Sarah's writing will never improve because there's neither a will nor a way.

Yes, Sarah has been basically intellectually stunted by her sheltered upbringing. For all we know, if she had been exposed to actual examples of good writing and allowed to think about the world more deeply, she might be capable of writing a book that even adults would be interested in, rather than having to settle for writing very simplistic stories for young kids. I consider the way that a lot of fundies intentionally suppress their children's intellectual growth to be a form of neglect. 

I don't know. I don't think that the Maxhellish environment is the only factor (albeit the most important), maybe Sarah would be a pretty unimaginative person even in a different situation. I mean, for example, the Bronte siblings grew up in a secluded and religious environment, Emily Dickinson lived most of life as a recluse (not her formative years though), Jane Austen wrote about a very restrict feminine universe made of gossip and very little, daily events, and yet none of them can be described as boring or unimaginative.

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The really sad thing about this is that Steve doesn't care if Sarah's a terrible writer. All that matters is the message. How it's delivered is unimportant. So we get this oh-so-perfect, completely unrealistic and unbelievable family that's supposed to be held up and imitated as a model of godly behavior and…that's it. Granted, some of the negative reviews on Amazon might have been a tad harsh—although not unwarranted—but with all of the comments on how poorly constructed the story was and how stilted the writing plus the many suggestions for how Sarah could improve, the ONLY comment Steve addressed was the one that talked about the grammatical errors…and Steve promptly threw the "proofreaders" under the bus. So Sarah's writing will never improve because there's neither a will nor a way.

Yes, Sarah has been basically intellectually stunted by her sheltered upbringing. For all we know, if she had been exposed to actual examples of good writing and allowed to think about the world more deeply, she might be capable of writing a book that even adults would be interested in, rather than having to settle for writing very simplistic stories for young kids. I consider the way that a lot of fundies intentionally suppress their children's intellectual growth to be a form of neglect. 

I don't know. I don't think that the Maxhellish environment is the only factor (albeit the most important), maybe Sarah would be a pretty unimaginative person even in a different situation. I mean, for example, the Bronte siblings grew up in a secluded and religious environment, Emily Dickinson lived most of life as a recluse (not her formative years though), Jane Austen wrote about a very restrict feminine universe made of gossip and very little, daily events, and yet none of them can be described as boring or unimaginative.

I was just thinking about this today! On my run this afternoon (gotta love that grad school schedule), I listened to a podcast about Queen Victoria's early life. Of course, she did get the best education money can buy, being a niece of the king and first in line for the throne for most of her life, but until she was 18, she was isolated from most of the world by her mother and her mother's comptroller/possible lover. Victoria couldn't even walk up or down a flight of stairs by herself until the day she found out that she was queen. She had very few friends her age because her sort-of-stepdad decided who got any sort of access to her, and her mom tried to make herself regent by trying to force Victoria to sign an agreement to that effect while she was delirious with fever (Victoria still had the presence of mind to say hell no). And yet despite her very Maxwellian upbringing (seriously, while I was listening to what her childhood was like and all the rules John Conroy and her mom had in place, all I could think of was "wow, Victoria lived that Maxwell life before the Maxwells were a thing"), Victoria managed to be a very worldly (if incredibly imperialistic) and overall pretty successful queen. Though as I mentioned before, she did get a world-class education from her tutors and she was a princess, so that helped things.

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I was really surprised at how stilted and unnatural Sarah was in front of the camera.  I noticed the same thing with one of the older boys (Nathan?) in a One Ton Ramp video.  The only time Sarah came across as mildly authentic was when she said, "imagine that, brothers and sisters loving each other!".  I think that must be the one thing they all cling to - that whatever they gave up, they gave up because if they had lived otherwise, they would have been Godless heathens who hated their families.

I am reading Keeping Our Children's Hearts right now and they are so sure of their methods and that isolation is best - that, combined with the fact that they do speaking tours - that I thought they would be good public speakers.  Sarah can barely get out the words of the script that she or Steve has written.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised, but they come across as people who cannot function well in society.

Their parents belong in jail.  

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Steve, I know you read here so stop thinking of yourself or death or eternal damnation and do Sarah a favour by passing on this advice: 

Sarah, I have two pieces of advice.

 To be a good writer you also have to be a reader. My advice to you is read A LOT. Don't limit yourself to the Bible. There are many excellent books, so explore and discover but even a badly written book can teach you something. Don't only focus on learning - discover what a joy reading can be.

To be a good writer you need to talk with other writers. Join a writing group. Take a class or better yet get a degree. "Fellowship" with others who share your passion for writing. There is much that other writers can teach you. 

Wishing you all the best, Sarah.

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Steve, I know you read here so stop thinking of yourself or death or eternal damnation and do Sarah a favour by passing on this advice: 

Sarah, I have two pieces of advice.

 To be a good writer you also have to be a reader. My advice to you is read A LOT. Don't limit yourself to the Bible. There are many excellent books, so explore and discover but even a badly written book can teach you something. Don't only focus on learning - discover what a joy reading can be.

To be a good writer you need to talk with other writers. Join a writing group. Take a class or better yet get a degree. "Fellowship" with others who share your passion for writing. There is much that other writers can teach you. 

Wishing you all the best, Sarah.

She can't, though.  Not unless she leaves the Maxwell house behind.  Their whole thing is that the parents very tightly control what they read and where they go.  They explicitly do not want their children to go to college, and the only things that they can read have to have been approved by Steve.  So - nothing where there is conflict, nothing where the father is shown as anything other than the family leader, nothing with swears or sex or drinking.  She can't read anything.  She can't fellowship with anybody because if you allow your children to go to outside groups or events, even those hosted by the church, their hearts will be pulled toward the leader of those events, and that's how you lose your children's hearts.

I'm sure you know this already.  But I'm in the thick of Keeping our Children's Hearts, and all of these things are explicitly laid out.  No WAY can she join a group or read books that are written by good writers.  That would ruin the Maxwell brand, and also make her ripe for rebellion.  When she gets married, maybe her new husband will allow her to do that, but he has to be careful!  Because those things will steal a woman's heart away.

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