One thing I've learned from the authors of novels that I've taught, including Laila Lalami ("Hope and Other Dangerous Pursuits"), Sarah McCoy ("The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico") and Brando Skyhorse ("The Madonnas of Echo Park") is that they really do want to hear high school students' reactions to and questions about their books.
I knew it was all over for "awesome" in the sense of "awe-inspiring" when I heard high-school cheerleaders spelling it out at a football game: "A-W-E-S-O-M-E.
I picked it up knowing it was an important book, a social touchstone, that I'd heard since high school should be read, but I found myself completely taken up by the narrator's voice.
Even though homosexuality has become increasingly acceptable in mainstream culture, the rapid succession of antigay marriage legislation and the antigay epithets heard around high school campuses with astonishing frequency can make being openly gay difficult.
He said he is particularly proud of making the All-Star team as a shortstop, since all he has heard since high school was that he eventually would have to move to third base.
In other food-related news, despite what you may have heard, a high school student in Bakersfield, California, DID NOT bake splooge into cupcakes and then feed it to bully classmates who had picked on her.
Rutgers President Robert Barchi wrote a letter to the university community earlier this month stating that Rice will still be the commencement speaker at the ceremony in Piscataway on May 18. "We have even heard from high school students who have written to say that they would withdraw their Rutgers applications if we rescind — or fail to rescind — our invitation to her," Barchi wrote.
What has he been hearing from high school counselors on the front lines?
I AM appalled whenever I hear about high school students trying to do research instead of concentrating on their fundamental education.
In "The Cost of Winning at Science" [opinion, Jan . 12]the author states that he is appalled when he hears about high school students entering science contests like Intel and Siemens.
IT would be no shock to hear a high school dropout with a cheerleader mane of strawberry-blond hair, who is displaying much cleavage and wearing a heart-shaped diamond ring the size of a York Peppermint Pattie, utter the following: "I'm always amazed at how much junk there is in the academic world which passes for truth".
