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The Big Fresh February 14, 2015 Joy’s Path

When I was 10 years old, I loved books, and I used to haunt the secondhand bookshop. And I found a little book I could just afford, and I bought...

The Big Fresh February 7, 2015 Rereading the Classics

Classics are books which, the more we think we know them through hearsay, the more original, unexpected, and innovative we find them when we actually read them.      ...

The Big Fresh January 31, 2015 Portmanteaus and Eggcorns

A new word is like a fresh seed sewn on the ground of the discussion.                                                  Ludwig Wittgenstein  I’ve always loved Ralph Fletcher’s advice that vocabulary instruction is all about...

The Big Fresh January 24, 2015 DEARO

Smile at strangers and you just might change a life.                                                  Steve Maraboli On a cold winter day last month I stood at the front door of a local school,...

The Big Fresh January 17, 2015 The Power of Nonfiction Picture Books

People respect nonfiction but they read novels.                                                  E.O. Wilson Student choice is a key component of my fourth-grade reading workshop. I believe that if students have more control in...

The Big Fresh January 10, 2015 What I’ve Read

To me, reading through old letters and journals is like treasure hunting. Somewhere in those faded, handwritten lines there is a story that has been packed away in a dusty...

The Big Fresh January 3, 2015 Cookies and Coaching

Cookies are made of butter and love.                                   Norwegian Proverb I always knew that the way to a person’s heart was through their stomach, so when I moved to a...

The Big Fresh December 27, 2014 Happiness of Pursuit

When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.                                                  Amelia Earhart I’ve been enjoying the book Happiness of Pursuit: Finding the Quest That Will Bring Purpose to Your Life...

The Big Fresh December 13, 2014 What Makes a Writer?

Let me live, love, and say it well in good sentences.                                      ...

The Big Fresh December 6, 2014 Watchers

Independence is happiness.                            Susan B. Anthony  It was early fall, and I was observing Carly Ullmer lead...

The Big Fresh November 29, 2014 Cheerfully Indifferent

Not my circus, not my monkeys.                            Polish proverb This summer I participated in a qigong class, which...

The Big Fresh November 22, 2014 Not Very Entertaining

We aren’t in an information age, we are in an entertainment age.                                                               Tony Robbins I visited Franki Sibberson’s third-grade class in late September. It’s one of my favorite times to...

The Big Fresh November 15, 2014 Thinking Is Good for the Soul

Readers are plentiful; thinkers are rare.                                              Harriet Martineau It was early in September, and Julie was leading her third graders in a discussion of a read aloud. She began, “Now...

The Big Fresh November 8, 2014 Take a Different Route

Sometimes the most scenic roads in life are the detours you didn’t mean to take.                                                                     Angela Blount A few weeks ago I heard Martha Stewart give a keynote about...

The Big Fresh November 1, 2014 Short and Smart

It is with words as with sunbeams, the more they are condensed, the deeper they burn.                            ...

The Big Fresh October 25, 2014 Learning Spaces

Memories aren’t stored in the head or the heart or even the soul, but in the spaces between any two people.                  ...

The Big Fresh October 18, 2014 Grief Bacon

Among my most prized possessions are words that I have never spoken.                                                     Orson Rega Card I’ve been...

The Big Fresh October 11, 2014 What We Take Away

What we remember from childhood we remember forever — permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.                                                                  Cynthia Ozick My father always told me, “The one thing no one can...

The Big Fresh October 4, 2014 Duct Tape Magic

The mind once expanded with the knowledge of duct tape never returns to its original size.                             ...

The Big Fresh September 27, 2014 Walk and Talk

Walking is good for solving problems — it’s like the feet are little psychiatrists.                                                                  Terri Guillemets  I’ve been reading lately about the craze of counting steps, and it’s likely...

The Big Fresh September 20, 2014 Chinese Food

I just love Chinese food. My favorite dish is number 27.                                                                Clement Atlee Not long ago, I spent the morning with a colleague completing a long and arduous online...