我对好文章有一种恋物癖，一看见就不能自己，好像八旗子弟见到鼻烟壶，鸟笼，辜鸿铭见到三寸金莲一样，灯下反复把玩嗅吸。遇到好词妙句，必定摘抄不缀。自己写文章时，有时会灵机一现，想起某处曾经邂逅的某个词组，某个句子，信手拈来正好，得来全不费功夫。
我的信条是：“模仿是原创之母。”我们生来赤条条，脑袋一片空白。要想在上面画出最美最好的图画，就必须遍览世界各大名家的遗世杰作，从中获得灵感。7
每当我要求学生模仿名家之作时，大多会尖声抗辩：“那不成了剽窃了吗？”
我对他们说：“你偷一块面包是小偷，如果你偷的是一条铁路，你就是企业家了。同理，剽窃一次是剽窃，剽窃一万次后，就是你的原创！“
当然，我这里有揶揄的成分。我要学生做的，不是模仿名作的筋骨肉，而是要他们模仿其中的精气神。我要他们明白：文章原来是可以这么写的。
不信？是骡是马拉出来溜溜！
我给学生看下面这篇总结北美80后一代人的妙文：
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.
等学生消化了这篇文章以后，我要求学生以类似的风格，写一篇总结中国90后一代的文章来。结果，交上来的作品让我眼前一亮：
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.
一名高中生能够写出这样的文章，的确令人刮目相看。
模仿的立竿见影，上面的例子略见一斑。
