If you are a “messy kid,” I bet you want to turn away from this RIGHT NOW.
But if you’re my student, I may have assigned you to read it, so don’t turn away.
If your parent wants you to read it, well, make them happy. It’s short.
Why not just be messy?
You already know the answer to this question. Messy people like their mess, true. But sometimes their mess keeps them from doing what they want to do.… Read the rest!
You’ve written something great. Or maybe you’ve written something that’s just good enough.
In any case, why rewrite or revise it?
What professional writers say
You might think that professional writers can just spit out good writing on the first try, the way a professional basketball player can make that ball swish through the hoop seemingly without effort.
This is actually not the case. What professional writers say is that the first draft is almost always just the germ of … Read the rest!
Journalism is a fancy word for good old news. People have needed news from the beginning of time. People have spread news in order to inform other people for as far back as humans remember.
How do we get news?
In very old times, people got their news from traveling bards who went from village to village. It could take months or years for news to reach the remotest places.
Once the printing press was invented, people got their news … Read the rest!
Note: Often I read articles written for adults and think, hey, I wish they had written this for kids! I started this blog is to present really important (and cool) information about learning to kids. If your parents are interested in reading the adult article that I based this blog entry on, you can send them this link. No need for you to read it, though, unless you want more details than I offer below.
It used to be … Read the rest!
Some famous stories that have trick or twist endings are O. Henry’s “The Gift of the Magi,” Shirley Jackson’s “Charles,” and Ambrose Bierce’s “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.”
People love it when stories trick them.
Or do they?
Sometimes when people read stories that have a trick ending, they get mad. They feel like they’ve been cheated. Why?
Here are some rules to think about when you are tempted to write a trick … Read the rest!
One thing that happens a lot in education is that kids get stressed out.
Some kids get stressed by the school environment. Maybe you’re at a school that has a lot of competition and you don’t like competition.
Some kids get stressed by certain types of activities. Common activities that can be stressful are public speaking and test taking.
Some kids get stressed out by social interactions. Maybe you haven’t found any friends at your school. Maybe you’re … Read the rest!
I started blogging in 2009 and quickly discovered I loved it! Here are some reasons to love blogging:
Blogging is creative
There are no hard rules about blogging. You can make your blog be whatever you want it to be.
Blogging records history
When you write things down, you are more likely to remember them. And years later you can look back and see what your thoughts were in the past. That’s pretty cool.
Blogging creates community
When you start … Read the rest!
“Learning to live with your biology?” you may ask. “What could that possibly mean?”
Before I had kids of my own, I didn’t know much about the brain, learning, and education. But then having my kids led me down this path to learning more about those subjects, and I learned something surprising:
The way your physical body is made has a lot to do with how your brain works.
Maybe that just sounds obvious to you, … Read the rest!
The first time I taught an essay writing class, one of my students raised her hand as I was talking.
“Excuse me,” she said. “But what does S. A. stand for?”
Like I always tell my students, there is no stupid question. But that question was surprising to me at the time!
Now I realize why people haven’t heard of essays: because they don’t see a need for them in their daily lives.
In reality, though, essays are not only … Read the rest!
Are you in charge of your own learning?
Well, to start with, you might say that you can’t be in charge of your own learning because the adults in your life tell you what you have to learn.
If you go to school, perhaps your teachers tell you what to learn.
If you’re homeschooled, maybe your parents tell you what to learn.
But there is something you can do to take charge, here’s what it is:
Don’t be a sea … Read the rest!
