Want to dig a bit deeper, stretch a bit wider, discover unique insights in your reading? So do I! That's why we literary nomads explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Subscribe for podcasts and video, fiction and poetry, essays and online courses, unexpected freebies, and ways to lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs!
On Fights and Rights, Friction and Nixon
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7 Sept 2025 Friction AheadReader, I've been thinking a lot about friction lately: friction as a posture against the speed and "flow" of culture, friction as a cognitive stance of inquiry and challenge in our reading, friction as reading strategy for discovery of meaning, in our discussion, in the work of classrooms and of teachers, in the demands of institutions. I just finished reading Valuable Friction by business strategist Robert Rose who I was fortunate to meet and hear speak at a recent creator conference called CEX. Rose's book has great thinking about how friction can work in all elements of business (and human quality of life) to slow us down, to capitalize on what no automation or process can create: the creative, critical, and reflective thinker and leader. But the framing of this book stops short of how we readers might understand it: as a necessary resistance we might explore in text and context, in how words operate with polysemy, in ambiguity, in discomfort: in short, in the term I've used so often, healthy uncertainty. Apparently, Robert and I have been thinking about this in a kind of Venn diagram of frictional inquiry. More, in line with the Waywords Readers Manifesto (see below!), we might understand that the whats and whys of what we read themselves might (should) be behaviors of some discernment: intentional, even philosophical, pedagogical and civic. I'm hardly the first to consider friction in the context of reading and teaching. Freire (Pedagogy of the Oppressed), Nel Noddings (Critical Lessons), Ernest Morrell (Critical Literacy and Urban Youth), and Ira Shor (Empowering Education) are just a few who link literacy to political power and opportunity. And writers like Blackwell and Talbot (The Art of Friction) investigate that critical space that sometimes vanishes between fiction and nonfiction. The field of "critical literacy" itself has aligned itself with inquiries into power since the 1970s. And this is a good time to recommend UBC's free Critical Literacy Kits which challenge a lot of our traditional canon and reading strategies in light of Indigenous Critical Literacy. The short of it for now, friction serves me well as a term to describe much of what I want for Waywords: not to speed our efficiency as readers and thinkers and planners and agents but to ask what meaning is lost when we bow to those demands, what personal power is surrendered. Literary Nomads: Le Guin Pt. 4: The Ones Who Stay and FightSo what is Utopia without a little resistance to it? In the latest episode of Literary Nomads (dropping in the next 24 hours from when this newsletter goes out), we close out our examination of the short story by adding N. K. Jemisin's response story, "The Ones Who Stay and Fight," a different sort of future where Jemisin's city of Um-Helat actively works to banish its historical injustices. Listeners might therefore ask, "Okay, so what should I do about it?" And the answer is nothing anyone really wants to here. Just ask philosopher George Bataille. Still so much ahead in this Journey 6! After 12 episodes, we've only just formed the key questions around otium and walled gardens, our moral compasses and normalizations of injustice. Have a question about what we're talking about? Don't forget the mailbag!
Up ahead:
The End of the Rights of Man Arendt closes the second part of her massive history with the end result of the age of Imperialism: the failure of the nation-state to defend its unequal application of the laws of man. On what authority do "inalienable rights" stand? How does one appeal and to whom if they are violated? Have your answer? Now what happens when you are "stateless"? Or when over 25% of some of European country populations are not citizens? Since stateless is a near synonym for "outlaw" in that they exist outside of the law, the door is open to totalitarian solutions for any who are the indésirables. Join in on the reading! Yes, we're over half way through, now, but that only means that you can follow my videos and guides at a leisurely pace! Find more here:
A Few Other Recent Offerings In case you missed them: From Waywords Learning:
From Book Reviews:
Writing Techniques Book:
Calendar: Towards the Equinox September is National Literacy Month and National Library Card Sign-up Month, so we can appreciate these last days of summer with a few extra reads!
Some Recommendations Early Recommendation from My Reading: Artists in Times of War by Howard Zinn (2002)Zinn's book of short talks is nonetheless a potent kick in the guys to readers, writers, creators who have missed their accountability to community. I was fortunate enough to lead a youth group talk with Zinn in 2003; he never fails to shake our complacency, needfully. “What most of us must be involved in--whether we teach or write, make films, write films, direct films, play music, act, whatever we do--has to not only make people feel good and inspired and at one with other people around them, but also has to educate a new generation to do this very modest thing: change the world."
Adding Friction to Online EducationWe're not the only ones thinking about it. Here Emory professor Pamela Scully reminds us that "slow teaching" is a virtue, that all of our LMS expertise may be harming the students. "In short, the LMS prompts many students to take a very passive approach to their coursework — until the pings arrive, at which point they feel overwhelmed and paralyzed."
Readers Manifesto at WaywordsI will say more about this in the weeks ahead, but I wanted to give my Words and Ways subscribers an early heads up. The first incarnation of our Waywords Readers Manifesto is complete, with versions for general readers, for writers and content creators, and for high school students, middle school students, and elementary students. More, I have a version available that supports the Manifesto's ideas with its research foundations. PDFs of this are available to all right now. Poster versions of these will be available soon. Feel free to download and share with anyone who might be interested. Many thanks to the Waywords Street Team subscribers who offered their input and guidance through the summer! Read, Engage, Education, and Act! A Readers Manifesto with Research A Readers Manifesto for Writers & Content Creators A Readers Manifesto for High School Students A Readers Manifesto for Middle School Students A Readers Manifesto for Elementary Students Phew! A bit of a heavy read today, but I appreciate your continued interest as the Waywords direction begins to manifest. Literacy is meaning-making is a political act of individual agency. Steve What's Still Ahead?
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Waywords Studio
Want to dig a bit deeper, stretch a bit wider, discover unique insights in your reading? So do I! That's why we literary nomads explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Subscribe for podcasts and video, fiction and poetry, essays and online courses, unexpected freebies, and ways to lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs!