Alexander M. Zoltai's Blog, page 30
February 12, 2018
Hack Your Essay
Today’s re-blog just might be the vital information a writer needs to get to the next “level”…
Your problem’s in the third paragraph. And let’s tighten that closing while you’re here.
Sometimes writing is a glorious creative flow, images tumbling out in perfect sequence and in the exact right words to express them. Other times, it’s a slog.
I know this isn’t quite working but I don’t know why.
When it happened, the experience wasn’t this…blah.
Where the heck do I sta...
February 11, 2018
Get Those Kids Out of the Room: Books to Get Your Students Outside and Immersed in Nature by Sarah Gross
Today’s re-blog — Yep, about kids — Still, I bet a few adults will Love it :-)
The onslaught of testing required by the No Child Left Behind Act has resulted in schools pressuring teachers to prepare students for tests, and time spent outdoors has suffered as a result. Nature-deficit disorder is a term used to describe the loss that children and teens experience when they are not given opportunities to have direct contact with nature. Richard Louv coined the term when resear...
February 10, 2018
Chasing the ’Writing High’
Fascinating writer’s struggle in today’s re-blog…
By Maddie Lock
Every day that I don’t write is a wasted one. There’s writing and there’s everything else. This creates a spiritual conflict.
Let me explain. I am a student of Buddhism now for four years. I call myself a student because I have yet to step over any definitive line that allows me to call myself anything other than one who is still learning. A practitioner, yes, but one who struggles with the pithy and pr...
February 9, 2018
Friday Story Bazaar ~ Tale Seventy-Seven
True Believer
by
Alexander M Zoltai
~~~~~~~~~
“It’s what other mortals say—there’s nothing divine about it…”
Anualia was answering the proprietor of the food establishment.
“I hear you Anualia and I wonder at your boldness…”
“I don’t feel I’m being bold, just logical, Manion.”
The proprietor excused himself with a nod to wait on two young people.
Anualia knew, at his depths, that he had logic on his side; yet, the Seneschal certainly had a very different idea of logic—a cruel, unjust “logic”—...
Why Poetry? by Susan Knell
“One of the richest gifts we can give children is the gift of poetry,” as stated by the great children’s poet/anthologist Lee Bennett Hopkins Sharing poetry is such an easy thing to do, but many times neglected by teachers who think they have to “teach” poetry and therefore feel inadequate to do so. However, they are mistaken. We need to share poetry with children, introduce them to the sound, language, and fun of poems, no strings attached. This month we celebrate National...
February 8, 2018
Music Keeps Inspiring Art
Artists just… know. So do children. They both tell the world their passion through painting. When music becomes part of creating art, magic happens.
“Art should make you feel, like music.” -Wassily Kandinsky-
Kandinsky is a favorite artist with the children. They like his colorful art, and they want to paint like him. I read aloud the children’s book, The Noisy Paintbox: The Colors and Sounds of Kandinsky’s Abstract Art, by Barb Rosenstock. When Kandinsky was a...
February 7, 2018
Top Ten Books to Inspire Inventors, Engineers, Tinkerers, and Those of Us Who Wish We Were! by Kristin Schweitzer
You know that kid, the one who doesn’t understand why he can’t record Lego instructions on his reading log? Or the one who disassembles her mechanical pencils, just to see how they work? As a teacher, I have not always recognized this child. You see, my teaching life was shaped by my reading life. As a child, I lost myself in the Big Woods, Terabithia, and Narnia. As a teacher, I loved to share these classics, and all of my latest reads with my students (Ghost by Jason Re...
February 6, 2018
Liberation Literature by Tricia Springstubb
Today’s re-blog means a bit more to me than most—I was born in the same state as two of the authors :-)
Back in the day when I was still a fledgling, I was thrilled to get a letter (a real one) telling me I’d won the Ohioana Book Award, something I didn’t even know existed. I wrote my little speech and nervously practiced it, trying hard to eradicate “umm” from my vocabulary. When the day came, my husband and three daughters drove down to the Columbus state house with me. The...
February 5, 2018
Living linear (or not) in a world of imagination
I recently had to see a few different doctors about a medical condition of mine (I’m fine.) As it turned out to fix my condition, I was supposed to have surgery in one office and then travel to another site, the next day for a surgical repair by a plastic surgeon.
When I initially consulted with the plastic surgeon he explained the proposed surgery to me. It was going to be complicated and involved skin flaps. I told him that I was a writer, had done a ton of re...
February 4, 2018
Re-thinking an Essay – After It’s Too Late
By Kathy Stevenson
I recently published an essay, “A Stranger At the Door,” on the Op/Ed page of the Chicago Tribune. And after reading it in its printed form, already irrevocably out there in the world – literally in black and white – I wanted to revise it. I really, really wanted to revise it. In fact, I wanted to rewrite the whole damn thing. But it was too late. The Chicago Tribune editorial policy (as I’m sure is the editorial policy of any traditional publicat...
