Month: August 2016

“Felicity rubbed a bit between her fingers. It was gray, just grit.”

Smiley3This is how the great-granddaughter of Iowa farmers Walter and Rosanna Langdon describes what’s left of the topsoil on the original family farm when she visits it in the closing pages of The Last Hundred Years Trilogy by Jane Smiley.  We can see the how this family’s decisions played … Read More

“We should expect no one will understand this.”

Lee2Ed Bok Lee, who won the 2012 American Book Award for this moving collection of poems, is the son of Korean emigrants. The family’s transition from Seoul to North Dakota was difficult. He writes about getting stoned before and after school from the age of 13. John Freeman, editor … Read More

“With grammar, it’s always something. “

OConnerThis is the first sentence in the chapter titled “Plurals before Swine: Blunders with Numbers” in Woe Is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English by Patricia T. O’Conner.  The tone is light-hearted, which, as the Publisher’s Weekly reviewer noted, makes it readable “even for those … Read More

“I used to think that if faculty teaching improved, student learning had to follow suit.”

McGuireNow, however, Saundra Yancy McGuire believes that even the best teachers will not see the kinds of learning gains that are possible “as long as students do not come to our classrooms prepared to learn efficiently and independently.” This book shows faculty members how to teach students how to learn … Read More