GLUTEN FREE RANGE BANANAS 0:00 / 0:00 Gluten Free Range Bananas Every morning, I eat a banana for breakfast. My banana is not a gluten free-range banana. Nor is it a banana with a sticker that proclaims, “No tarantulas were harmed in the picking of this fruit.” It is a plain old banana. When […]
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PHI BETA KAPPA JOURNAL REVIEW OFCZARS AND CZARINAS Review by Sama Imran Ilyas Although it is categorized under children’s nonfiction, I found myself completely engrossed by Czars and Czarinas, a new ibook by Deborah Prum (ΦBK, University of Connecticut, ) released earlier this year. Prum is an award-winning author and founder of Still Mountain Bookworks.
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ALL ABOUT THAT BASSWRITING TIP Have you heard Meghan Trainor’s song All About That Bass? Catchy lyrics, great beat, terrific message. I know this song is about body image, but you can also extrapolate a couple of writing tips, such as: 1. Perfectionism is the enemy of creativity. If you try to sit down and instantly
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EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES 0:00 / 0:00 Extenuating Circumstances This essay just aired on NPR-member station WVTF and appeared in the Washington Post. *** EXTENUATING CIRCUMSTANCES Years ago, right before an end-of-the-term field trip, my son brought home a notice from his middle school. The body of the letter included the usual information: dates, cost, arrival
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THE MONKEY AND THE BANANAA LESSON IN PROBLEM SOLVING A few years back, I read a study about monkeys and baskets. I don’t remember the names of the researchers or where they worked, but here’s the gist of what happened. They split monkeys into two groups then taught all of the monkeys how to open
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WHAT KEEPS US TOGETHER 0:00 / 0:00 What Keeps Us Together My granddaughter Campbell is 2 and lives about 6,900 miles from Charlottesville. My grandmother, Benedetta, is 105 and lives in Connecticut, about 600 miles from here. I chat with Campbell by Skype and Facetime. I communicate with Benedetta by snail mail and telephone. Unfortunately,
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HOW TO CREATE LIVELY CHARACTERSWRITING TIP Photo Courtesy of Bob Dass I take improv classes at The Big Blue Door. Recently, we learned a game called, Present, Past, Future. The exercise gave me wonderful insight in how to create characters who hop off of the page. Here’s how it’s played. One person starts a scene
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SMOKIN’ SCIENCE 0:00 / 0:00 Smokin' Science One day, my seventh grade physical sciences teacher announced mandatory participation in a science fair. Up to the day before the event, I hadn’t prepared. Hadn’t determined a research question. Hadn’t developed a hypothesis and definitely had not come to any conclusions. In my mind, the scientific method
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0:00 / 0:00 Caught in the Jaws of a Claw My exercise essay appeared in The Daily Progress today. See below: CAUGHT IN THE JAWS OF A CLAW Have you ever wanted to be someone you’re not? So, one day I was at the gym exercising on the calf-stretching machine. As you might
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THE SIXTY-FIVE DOLLAR QUESTION 0:00 / 0:00 The Sixty-Five Dollar Question This essay aired on this NPR-member station and appeared in The Washington Post. THE SIXTY-FIVE DOLLAR QUESTION The last time my folks visited, our whole family swapped tales around the dining table. Our topic? Marriage proposals: who proposed to whom and how. My husband, Bruce,
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