我對好文章有一種戀物癖，一看見就不能自己，好像八旗子弟見到鼻煙壺，鳥籠，辜鴻銘見到三寸金蓮一樣，燈下反複把玩嗅吸。遇到好詞妙句，必定摘抄不綴。自己寫文章時，有時會靈機一現，想起某處曾經邂逅的某個詞組，某個句子，信手拈來正好，得來全不費功夫。
我的信條是：“模仿是原創之母。”我們生來赤條條，腦袋一片空白。要想在上麵畫出最美最好的圖畫，就必須遍覽世界各大名家的遺世傑作，從中獲得靈感。7
每當我要求學生模仿名家之作時，大多會尖聲抗辯：“那不成了剽竊了嗎？”
我對他們說：“你偷一塊麵包是小偷，如果你偷的是一條鐵路，你就是企業家了。同理，剽竊一次是剽竊，剽竊一萬次後，就是你的原創！“
當然，我這裏有揶揄的成分。我要學生做的，不是剽竊名作的筋骨肉，而是要他們模仿其中的精氣神。我要他們明白：文章原來是可以這麽寫的。
不信？是騾是馬拉出來溜溜！
我給學生看下麵這篇總結北美80後一代人的妙文：
Children of the Eighties
We are the children of the Eighties. We are not the first "lost generation" nor today's lost generation; in fact, we think we know just where we stand - or are discovering it as we speak.
We are the ones who played with Lego Building Blocks when they were just building blocks and gave Malibu Barbie crew cuts with safety scissors that never really cut. We collected Garbage Pail Kids and Cabbage Patch Kids and My Little Ponies and Hot Wheels and He-Man action figures and thought She-Ra looked just a little bit like I would when I was a woman.
Big Wheels and bicycles with streamers were the way to go, and sidewalk chalk was all you needed to build a city. Imagination was the key. It made the Ewok Treehouse big enough for you to be Luke and the kitchen table and an old sheet dark enough to be a tent in the forest. Your world was the backyard and it was all you needed. With your pink portable tape player, Debbie Gibson sang back up to you and everyone wanted a skirt like the Material Girl and a glove like Michael Jackson's.
Today, we are the ones who sing along with Bruce Springsteen and The Bangles perfectly and have no idea why. We recite lines with the Ghostbusters and still look to The Goonies for a great adventure. We flip through T.V. stations and stop at The A Team and Knight Rider and Fame and laugh with The Cosby Show and Family Ties and Punky Brewster and what you talkin' 'bout Willis? We hold strong affections for The Muppets and The Gummy Bears and why did they take the Snorks off the air? After school specials were only about cigarettes and step-families, the Polka Dot Door was nothing like Barney, and aren't the Power Rangers just Voltron reincarnated?
We are the ones who still read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, the Bobsey Twins, Beverly Clearly and Judy Blume, Richard Scary and the Electric Company. Friendship bracelets were ties you couldn't break and friendship pins went on shoes - preferably high top Velcro Reeboks - and pegged jeans were in, as were Units belts and layered socks and jean jackets and jams and charm necklaces and side pony tails and just tails. Rave was a girl's best friend; braces with colored rubber bands made you cool.
The backdoor was always open and Mom served only red Kool-Aid to the neighborhood kids- never drank New Coke. Entertainment was cheap and lasted for hours. All you needed to be a princess was high heels and an apron; the Sit'n'Spin always made you dizzy but never made you stop; Pogoballs were dangerous weapons and Chinese Jump Ropes never failed to trip someone. In your Underoos you were Wonder Woman or Spider Man or R2D2 and in your tree house you were king. In the Eighties, nothing was wrong. Did you know the president was shot?
Star Wars was not only a movie. Did you ever play in a bomb shelter? Did you see the Challenger explode or feed the homeless man? We forgot Vietnam and watched Tiananman's Square on CNN and bought pieces of the Berlin Wall at the store. AIDS was not the number one killer in the United States. We didn't start the fire, Billy Joel. In the Eighties, we redefined the American Dream, and those years defined us.
We are the generation in between strife and facing strife and not turning our backs. The Eighties may have made us idealistic, but it's that idealism that will push us and be passed on to our children - the first children of the twenty-first century. Never forget: We are the children of the Eighties.
等學生消化了這篇文章以後，我要求學生以類似的風格，寫一篇總結中國90後一代的文章來。結果，交上來的作品讓我眼前一亮：
Children of the 90s
We are the children of the Nineties. Most of us are about the age of teenage at this moment; it’s about time to move up the stage of history. We took the baton from the past generations, and we are determined to make the world a better place.
We are the ones who watched Tom And Jerry, a battle between cats and mice. We also enjoyed movies like the Lion King. We learned how to make hamburgers out of plasticine with plastic tool provided. We collected Yu-Gi-Oh cards, which often do not get the chance to be played among players.
Exquisite machines filled in our homes before we were even born. Those huge machines could do work that we wouldn’t have time to do, once our mothers told us, even though we never figured out how the mechanism worked. We learned to use many newly coming-out gadgets even faster than anyone else without glimpsing even once at the instruction manuals. Computers and internets became a big part of our daily life soon after we walked into first grade classroom.
Cool cars and subways with comfortable seats were the way to go, Airbus and bullet trains were available for farther traveling. The boys and girls were forced into schools learning things they had no idea where to use in their quotidian life. The old generations often laughed at our immaturity, naivety and simplicity, but they forgot we witnessed different things, which we thought to be meaningful to us.
We all loved sports, and many sports stars are our role models. Today, we are the ones who are talking about Messy and Lebron, arguing over whether Tom Brady is a good quarterback for the Patriots. We listened to music records of the Beatles, but we also enjoyed tunes from Lady Gaga and Bruno Mars. We wished to become a wizard, like Harry Potter, but hoped at the same time to be transformed into Spiderman.
During our time the world is peaceful. We didn’t live with the shadow from the cold war, and we were not affected by the Great Depression. We learned French or Spanish as a second language since very little in hopes of communicating with foreign friends. We got excited when we saw Tom Cruise surviving from his “impossible mission”, and we became angry when we saw innocent civilians were bombarded by the US drones in Pakistan.
We were misjudged by the past generations as the species of the irresponsible and the egocentric. However, we consider ourselves the imaginative and idealistic individuals, most importantly, we are willing to make changes in our world. As the Children of the nineties, sometimes we are not fully understood by our parents, but as members of this huge and glorious group we shall always remember: We are the bridge between two centuries, the melting pot for both the old and the new.
一名高中生能夠寫出這樣的文章，的確令人刮目相看。
模仿的立竿見影，上麵的例子略見一斑。
