Last endnote: I have always wondered why writing classes (with a given high level of competence and ambition among students) don't ever hand out like, Didion and Sontag essays (or Lockwood, or really anything in NYRB) and talk about how they work and challenge students to attempt things similar in some way! It really is so much more appealing. I know Ta-Nehisi has written about staff meetings at the Washington Monthly reverse engineering New Yorker pieces; surely there are more people who can and want to do that reverse engineering with a group.