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This morning, when I woke up, the first thing I thought of was writing. How do I help them love writing? How do I show them, or help them see how each stroke of a key is like a stroke of a brush, the sweep of a blending tool, the saturating color of pastels? We…
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How many of you have asked a kid why they did or did not do something? You can see the scenario in your mind clearly, can’t you? You are standing in front of a young person, maybe one hand is on your hip and they are staring at you with a mixture of defiance, guilt,…
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Sound off in the comments if I am wrong, science teachers, but the combination of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom makes a water molecule. The last science class I took was a long, long time ago, but that stuck in my memory and I think it is true. (Though in an effort to…
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This is what the Oxford English Dictionary has to say for the definition of the word “artificial”: adj. and n.; of a thing: made or constructed by human skill, esp. in imitation of, or as a substitute for, something which is made or occurs naturally. A substitute for something that occurs naturally. Today, a student…
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Every word in this sentence has a job to do. It has a job title, a place in the word value hierarchy, and is part of the overall product of the sentence. We are nouns. I am. You are. My kids are. We are also pronouns. I call my(possessive pronoun) daughter (noun) “she” (pronoun) when…
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How often do you use the phrase “I should have (enter past-tense verb here)”? I decided this week to count how many times I use it, and today alone I am up to 14. I should have brought more than one pair of shoes to Chicago. I should have called the doctor earlier in the…
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It is the middle of the beginning of the end of July, which means that summer is steadily trickling away. The 4th of July decor has been fully replaced by back-to-school sales and supplies. (Inexplicably, my craft store has erupted with Halloween supplies, and there is a corner dedicated to Christmas decorations.) The price of…
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They are so loud? Noisy. Raucous. Rowdy. Roaring. Blaring Vociferous. There are so many words that mean the same thing as loud. But they also don’t. The synonyms for loud all look like kinds of loud. Take rowdy loud. Rowdy loud is the class I have on my mind right now. I can’t really explain…
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Some of us were lucky enough to be coming of age in the ’90s. The 1990s. You remember the time when a phone in your room was the ultimate sign of teenage independence, and you also remember having a phone cord that stretched from the kitchen to the living room. You remember your pockets having…
Middle School Mixtape 