“Only she who says she did not choose, is the loser in the end.”

RichAdrienne Rich was a revolutionary. As Margalit Fox wrote in the New York Times, Rich “accomplished in verse what Betty Friedan, author of The Feminine Mystique, did in prose. In describing the stifling minutiae that had defined women’s lives for generations, both argued persuasively that women’s disenfranchisement at … Read More

“If we do not consciously and intentionally seek to change the norms in our classrooms, we are likely to find ourselves . . .with students paying only civil attention.”

Howard

Sociologist Jay Howard notes that in 1976 researchers Karp and Yoels distinguished between students who paid attention from students who created the appearance of paying attention, which they termed “civil attention.” If you ever had a hard time getting a discussion going in class, it may be because the students … Read More

“The perennial question of motherhood, Eloise thought, was how honest to be.”

smileyThis is the first book in a trilogy about a farm family in Iowa.  It begins in 1920 and runs for a hundred years, with a chapter per year. I’m among its many fans. As the LA Times says, the significance of moments “becomes clear only with the passage of … Read More

“But we did not feel as if anything we said was a lie. We both believed that the real lie was told by our present unworthy circumstances.”

WolffThe “truth” looms large in Tobias Wolff’s memoir A Boy’s Life. He tells us, for example, how he hijacked the school application process by creating fake transcripts and letters of recommendations when he applied to schools out East. He describes two types of truth – things he knew were true, … Read More