On Memorial Day in America, we remember and honor those in the armed services who have given their lives in the line of duty.
Poppies are often given out on Memorial Day as a symbol of those fallen men and women. This tradition comes from the first lines of the poem “In Flanders Fields” by Lieutenant Colonel John McRae, who wrote it during World War I and was remembering his fallen friends now buried in fields far from home.
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“There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home,” says Dorothy Gale in the movie The Wizard of Oz.
L. Frank Baum, the author of the The Wonderful Wizard of Oz and the other Oz books, was born in May in 1856. That’s more than 150 years ago, but his statement is still true. There’s no place like home, and there’s no place like your home.
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Persuasion. How-to. Compare and contrast. Enumerative. Are your students baffled by these types of essays?
Take heart! Use the 13 links you’ll find below that show how to format and write 6 types of paragraphs and essays.
As an added bonus, the last link leads to a very handy writing schedule you can use all year. Never say, “Write an essay,” again! (You’ve got to be kidding!)
These tutorials are appropriate for students in 7th – 12th grade. Use them now or bookmark them for future use.
{Writing Tip: If your student is not quite ready to write a whole essay, give him or her practice in writing the types of paragraphs you’ll find in this post. For instance, instead of writing a whole compare-and-contrast essay, how about a compare-and-contrast paragraph from one of the links in #5?}
Ready? Let’s go . . .
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Hundreds of thousands of tourists visit a particular site in Scotland each year, hoping to see a monster. What are they looking for?
It turns out that tourists are not the only ones looking for something. Operation Groundtruth has begun a search for the Loch Ness Monster (“Nessie”), a monster some claim they have seen. They are using a marine robot equipped with sonar to search the depths of the loch.
Nessie, if she exists, is thought to be a marine reptile, perhaps a plesiosaur, left over from the age of dinosaurs.
What has Operation Groundtruth found so far? The steep sides of the loch, the deep trench of the loch, and even a World War II airplane lying on the bottom of the loch. No Nessie. Yet.
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Burros, tall tales, and fears: You can find them all in the Grand Canyon.
In 1893, the Grand Canyon was made a Forest Reserve and then later a National Monument. It became a national park in 1919, just three years after the National Park Service was formed.
Which prompt about this amazing formation will your students enjoy?
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Have you seen the presidents on Mount Rushmore? Walked among the giant sequoias of Yosemite National Park? Stood on the precipice of the Grand Canyon? Explored an underwater shipwreck as a Junior Ranger?
The United States’ National Park Service turned 100 in 2016, but even before it was formed, 35 national parks and monuments were already in operation. We can celebrate a rich heritage of forests, deserts, mountains, sweeping landscapes, historical sites, and other treasures saved for our education and enjoyment.
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Okay, so we’re close to Halloween.
For some Christians, Halloween can be a controversial event.
Some families celebrate it as a harmless and fun day to dress up and collect candy. Others view it as having satanic or questionable roots and do not celebrate it.
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Across the country, nearly 1 out of every 4 high school students is dropping out, according to boostup.org.
Here are some statistics about dropouts. I was the most surprised by #11. That post mentions a “dropout factory.” You’ll find the definition of that term here, along with other facts about dropping out of school.
Why do you think students drop out of high school? Here are some interesting reasons, according to the students who are dropping out.
Do you think they should stay in school and graduate? After all, David Karp, founder of Tumblr, dropped out of high school
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Famed physicist Stephen Hawking and others launched a $100 million program called Breakthrough Listen in their search for alien life beyond Earth. The search will begin with the one million stars closest to us in the Milky Way Galaxy and then expand into neighboring galaxies.
“We believe that life arose spontaneously on Earth, so in an infinite universe, there must be other occurrences of life,” Hawking said.
They have a lot of listening ahead of them. That’s a lot of area to cover!
Would you like to win a cool million?
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In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson writes that our “inalienable rights” are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”
“Inalienable” means you can’t sell your rights or transfer them to someone else. They’re yours to keep.
But what does “the pursuit of happiness” mean?
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