Did you know that you should not spray Windex in your eyes? You did?
But did you also know that you should not use hair coloring as ice cream topping? Hmmm? Did you? Or that your TV’s remote isn’t dishwasher safe?
These and other crazy warnings
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It’s easy for our students to make these common mistakes in persuasive writing. I’ve seen them in any number of newspapers and magazines in letters to the editor, and they abound in student essays. I’m guessing you have seen them as well.
I won’t keep you in suspense. Here’s the list:
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Introductions can be boring. Super boring.
Young writers think they have to fight with a blank piece of paper for that first, amazing sentence before they write anything else, and so they get stuck.
Cue the tissues. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
A mom recently asked me to look at her son’s essay. He was entering a state-wide speech contest on the topic of responsibility and had written a solid essay—except for the introduction. He was going to put his listeners to sleep with it.
We were all sitting at his kitchen table. I turned to this teen and asked him,
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The world lost an important poet, writer, and human being in 2014.
On May 28, 2014, Maya Angelou, author of I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings and other famous books, died quietly in her sleep. You can learn more about her here.
Maya Angelou wrote many memoirs about her fascinating life. One of them is The Heart of a Woman, from which the following two quotes are taken.
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I recently cleaned out my purse and found seven expired coupons, most of them for clothing and craft stores. Now that you know how disorganized I am . . .
These coupons gave me an idea for a prompt you can do with your children.
Why do I suggest that you write with your children? When they see you writing, they learn that it’s a legitimate activity in which they can have success. Plus, it’s a lot of fun to read the results to each other. You might be surprised at what you learn about your kids.
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Maureen Wilcox bought two lottery tickets in 1980, one in Rhode Island and one in Massachusetts. And she picked winning numbers. Was she lucky?
According to mental_floss magazine , the numbers she chose for the Massachusetts lottery were the winning numbers for the Rhode Island lottery. And the numbers she chose for the Rhode Island lottery were the winning numbers for the Massachusetts lottery. So was she unlucky?
You’ve heard of superstitions: don’t let a black cat cross your path, pick a four-leaf clover for luck, be on the winning end of the wishbone, a lucky stone or rabbit’s foot, and so forth. But do they work? Are they real?
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Have you ever taught your parents or other adults how to do something?
Most likely, you’ve helped them learn how to work their mobile devices because you find it easier to deal with the features of technology than they do.
In a University of Maine study, researchers found that when laptops were introduced into the classroom,
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This writing prompt is all about eating, so it makes sense to have a menu of choices for you to write about.
Choose one item from the menu below to write about. Here goes:
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Bigfoot. Sasquatch. Kraken. Yeti. Extraterrestrials (ETs). The Loch Ness Monster.
Do they exist?
Many photos have been taken of these supposed monsters, and occasional sightings only add to the excitement.
Click here to see a satellite image of Loch Ness in Scotland taken by Apple Maps. Some people believe they see an image of the Loch Ness Monster, or Nessie, in it, including her flippers. Nessie is believed by some to be a plesiosaur, a long-necked dinosaur that lives in water.
What do you think? Is it she? Could it be?
Read MoreAudio Science. Fifi. Coco. Hopper. Apple.
What do these words have in common?
They are names that celebrities have given their children.
Celebrities aren’t the only ones giving their children weird or unusual names. There are a lot of strange names out there: Jedi, Google, and
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