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Genre: Memoir/ Persuasive
Writing Technique: Sharing an impactful story that formed a belief about life.
Topic: ALL different kinds of things!
(Jessi Pezzin)

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Beginning in 1951, radio pioneer Edward R. Murrow asked Americans from all walks of life to write essays about their most fundamental and closely held beliefs. Half a century later, NPR, Atlantic Public Media and This I Believe, Inc. are partnering to recreate 'This I Believe' on the air and online.

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Time Magazine's 100 Most influential Images of All time.
Genre: Any. These are images students could write from under any genre, purpose, or topic.
(Deb D)

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Genre:  Restaurant Reviews
Writing Technique:  Opinion, critique, figurative language, imagery
Topic:  This website publishes an annual of the worst restaurant reviews.
Purpose:  Entertain, Persuade, Inform

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The professional restaurant critic can take even the most dismal dining experience and turn it into digestible fodder for readers. In fact, it's those baffling, disappointing, and downright bad meals that often make for the most entertaining reads.

Per annual Eater tradition, here's a look at the best of what critics had to say about the worst restaurant experiences. In keeping with the spirit of 2017, reviews were about more than unfortunate food on a plate. This year's crop of beleaguered critics asked big questions: Should a supposed hero of the working class charge $7 for a hot dog? How does the highest-grossing restaurant group get away with its culturally appropriative decor? And is this restaurant racist?

For attempts at the answers - plus expertly barbed descriptions of some really terrible food - read on.

Besha Rodell at Tao, Los Angeles

Former LA Weekly critic Besha Rodell set out to understand Tao, the massively successful New York-based mini chain. She wanted to know how a place that serves expensive, mediocre food and "blithely offers bottle service under a giant, reclining Buddha statue as paintings of demure geishas cast their eyes alluringly downward behind the bar" could be the highest-grossing restaurant in America.

But, failing to reach that understanding, and faced with unexpectedly bad food, what else was Rodell to to do but write a zero-star takedown? Instead of "expensive, decent, Americanized versions of Chinese and Japanese classics," she dined on "dumpling skins so thick and glutinous that eating them was a little like biting into semi-coagulated library paste." Uni was of "the wan, dull-colored variety that you find in small-town, landlocked sushi bars, its creaminess turning to liquid, its oceanic pungent flavor edging on acridity." America, she concludes, deserves better.

For the kill: "The food isn't that much worse than what's available at any number of popular chain restaurants, from the higher end through fast food (though I would much rather eat the orange chicken at P.F. Chang's or Panda Express than the orange chicken at Tao)."

Jay Rayner at Le Cinq, Paris

Guardian critic Jay Rayner is famously biting, but a trip to Le Cinq in Paris inspired a takedown that nearly sparked international conflict. The very fancy, Michelin-starred restaurant did nothing right, from the decor ("It is decorated in various shades of taupe, biscuit, and fuck you") to the food ("A main of pigeon is requested medium, but served so pink it just might fly again given a few volts") to the service ("There is only one thing worse than being served a terrible meal: being served a terrible meal by earnest waiters who have no idea just how awful the things they are doing to you are"). The French were not pleased.

For the kill: "If I work hard, with luck, one day I may be able to forget."

Ryan Sutton at Public Kitchen, New York

Eater NY senior critic Ryan Sutton declared Jean-Georges Vongerichten's Public Kitchen New York City's worst new restaurant in a zero-star review with all the requisite one-liners. Although Sutton notes a bad meal at a restaurant in Vongerichten's international empire isn't out of the ordinary, he describes the mystifyingly buzzy Public Kitchen as nothing more than a "generically bad hotel restaurant."

Take, for example, the black truffle pizza, a Vongerichten staple. At Public, "the kitchen charred the exterior crust to a carbonic black, while the interior drooped flaccidly. The signature fungi paste, in turn, exhibited the color and texture of wet mud." Service doesn't make up for it. Sutton writes, "The staff at Public find a way to make the concessioners at Yankee Stadium look four-star by comparison."

For the kill: "Even Manhattan clam chowder, the accompaniment to grilled salmon (ordered medium rare, delivered medium well), turns out not to be actual soup, but a thin, saccharine, barely spoonable sauce of tomato and chile oil; it's precisely the type of liquid one might expect to find scrapped off the side of a hot steel buffet."

Pete Wells at Locol, Oakland

Some reviews only become scathing with context. In the early days of 2017, Pete Wells dropped a goose egg on Locol, the mission-driven fast-food restaurant from chefs Daniel Patterson and Roy Choi. The New York-based New York Times dining critic traveled all the way to Oakland to critique the second location of Locol, whose aim is to create jobs and serve healthier fast food to communities that need it.

Wells, who typically reviews fine dining or casual chef-driven spots, was especially displeased with the chicken: "Inside a thin sheath of fried coating, this composite of ground meat is mysteriously bland and almost unimaginably dry," he writes. "It can be had as a single patty between buns with coleslaw, as the Fried Chicken Burg, or in a paper cup, with barbecue sauce, as bite-size Chicken Nugs. But the best thing to do with it is pretend it doesn't exist."

Many thought the review was unfairly harsh, and internet backlash was swift. (The Oakland location Wells reviewed ended up closing in June.)

For the kill: "Mr. Patterson and Mr. Choi seem to have thought about the social dimensions of fast food so much that they now see their target audience as problems to be solved, not customers to be pleased. The most nutritious burger on earth won't help you if you don't want to eat it."

Tom Perkins at Made in Detroit, Detroit

The fact that a restaurant from rap-rock star Kid Rock was the subject of a negative review should come as no surprise, but Tom Perkins's problems with Made in Detroit run deep. In the Detroit Metro Times, he writes that he can "forgive that the House-Brined Wings that arrive wet with the 'Detroit honey hot sauce' are a good pick on paper, but leave you searching for the 'honey and hot' through the wall of sodium." The American goulash, a $16 "sub-average dish of glorified Hamburger Helper that crackles with sodium," also gets a pass, as do "flavorless Brussels sprouts" and the Hamtramck burger, a "mostly meaty and mushy" sandwich that "seems to absorb any discernible flavor outside of the omnipresent sodium." But Perkins can't forgive the prices.

For the kill: "Really, there's no serious crime at Kid Rock's Made In Detroit beyond the price point... That's a bit odd since Ritchie bills himself as a working-class hero."

Lesley Chesterman at Bar George, Montreal

Lesley Chesterman began her meal at Bar George, a British restaurant in a historic Montreal building, with a cocktail that was "pretty to look at" but "sadly fell as flat as that Tom Cruise Mummy movie." The drink, she writes in a zero-star Montreal Gazette review, turned out to be a metaphor for the meal to come. The menu was "gimmicky," a cream of mushroom soup "didn't taste a bit of mushroom," and a terrine of pork hock had a "salt problem" that "marred the entire round of main courses." Dessert wasn't any better: "A suet-based roly-poly cake topped with sea buckthorn berries and clotted cream was the worst dessert I've tasted in eons," Chesterman says. "I pushed the plate away after just one salty, pasty bite."

For the kill: "The website describes the restaurant as 'a modern-day rendezvous, cooking classic U.K. fare, slapped with Québécois cheek.' Why put a label on it? Why not just make good food? Especially in June, when hearty British dishes are about as appropriate as a tweed overcoat."

Brian Reinhart at Hot Joy, Dallas

Brian Reinhart didn't intend for his review of Hot Joy to be a commentary on cultural appropriation, but upon visiting, the Dallas Observer critic realized that Hot Joy's biggest problem wasn't its food (although that was certainly a problem), but race: "Hot Joy is a clueless white-dude fantasy in which Asian identity and cuisine are reduced to a string of ironic clichés." These clichés take the form of a "fetishistic interior" and a jumbled menu of every "East Asian food that's middlebrow-approved," and the food doesn't even live up to the stereotypes.

"Its foods billed as spicy and funky, are instead sweetened and tamed," Reinhart writes. "I've suffered through herby pad Thai suffocating under a thick gloopy sweet sauce about as spicy as plain yogurt." Perhaps unsurprisingly, Hot Joy is now closed.

For the kill: "If Hot Joy's attitude shows a shallow respect for Asia, its haphazard cooking betrays the kind of overconfidence that grows from ignorance."

Honorable Mentions:

Bethany Jean Clement at Bulletproof Coffee, Seattle: In a review of Seattle's first Bulletproof cafe for the Seattle Times, columnist Bethany Jean Clement makes it hilariously clear she's not buying into the cult. At the Seattle cafe, the allegedly brain-enhancing, butter-infused coffee is bad, but the food - rubbery deviled eggs and a breakfast burrito, "which they'll heat up for you if you like" - is worse. For the kill: "With the exception of the wan porkiness of the bites that include floppy bits of uncured bacon, it's more of a textural experience than a taste sensation, like eating a gummy, tasteless cloud."

The Infatuation LA at Vespertine, LA: In a restaurant review for these times, the Infatuation LA editors used Instagram stories to chronicle their experience at tasting-menu sensation Vespertine (before being yelled at by Vespertine staff for their phone use and for infuriating "the space emperor" chef Jordan Kahn). They commented on the space ("outer space is pretty") and the food ("oh look we can eat a tree"), and concluded that Vespertine is "complete and utter garbage." For the kill: "It's a miserable, dark trap."

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The Best of 2017's Bad Restaurant Reviews

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The professional restaurant critic can take even the most dismal dining experience and turn it into digestible fodder for readers. In fact, it's those baffling, disappointing, and downright bad meals that often make for the most entertaining reads. Per annual Eater tradition, here's a look at the best of what critics had to say about the worst restaurant experiences.

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The Important Book by Margaret Wise Brown
Genre:  Poetry, Children's Literature
Topic:  Finding value and beauty in ordinary, everyday life.
Writing Technique:  lyrical narrative, imagery, descriptive writing
Purpose:  Inform, Entertain
-Pam Z.

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The Important Book has 2,003 ratings and 204 reviews. Erin said: My first experience with this book was with grade 4 students today and I just loved it! ...

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Genre: Memoir, snapshot non-fiction, cataloguing
Writing Technique: Descriptive writing, narrative, dialogue
Topic: Snapshot biographies of people on the sidewalks of NYC. Can use it in your classroom to teach writing which introduces kids to their classmates or as instruction in describing other people.
Purpose: Entertain, describe, inform

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Genre: Memoir
Writing Technique: Being succinct, word counting
Topic: ALL!  The Smith website is full of examples!  Kids write about their failures, successes, etc.
Purpose: Inform, Entertain, Persuade
(Joy Wagener)

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Celebrating students' work from classrooms across the world.

Since we launched the Six-Word Memoir project, educators of all kinds have found six words to be a terrific classroom assignment and catalyst for self-expression.

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Genre:  Opinion Piece
Writing Technique:  Using evidence to support argument
Topic:  Starting school later
Purpose:  Persuade

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Starting schools before 8:30 a.m. shows a tragic disregard for both the mental health of children and for science.

By Henry Nicholls

Mr. Nicholls is a journalist and a high school science teacher.

Image

Credit Credit Leo Espinosa

This article has been updated to reflect news developments.
A fresh-faced batch of teenagers just began a new school year, but will they get the most out of it? In the mornings, many are forced to get to school much too early. And at night, ubiquitous screens are a lure that's hard to resist. This double whammy is a perfect lesson in sleep deprivation.

Three out of every four students in grades 9 to 12 fail to sleep the minimum of eight hours that the American Academy of Sleep Medicine recommends for their age group. And sleep deprivation is unremittingly bad news. Anyone who talks about sleep as if it's some kind of inconvenience and getting less of it is a virtue should be challenged. These people are dangerous.

At its most basic, insufficient sleep results in reduced attention and impaired memory, hindering student progress and lowering grades. More alarmingly, sleep deprivation is likely to lead to mood and emotional problems, increasing the risk of mental illness. Chronic sleep deprivation is also a major risk factor for obesity, Type 2 diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer. As if this weren't enough, it also makes falling asleep at the wheel much more likely.

It is important to understand why teenagers have a particularly hard time getting enough sleep, and what adults need to do to help.

First, a reminder of the basic biology: After puberty, adolescents are no longer the morning larks of their younger years. They become rewired as night owls, staying awake later and then sleeping in. This is not part of a feckless project to frustrate parents, but is driven by changes in the way the brain responds to light.

New technology habits aren't helping. More teenagers now turn to activities involving screens at night. According to a report this year from the Pew Research Center, some 95 percent of children aged 13 to 17 now have access to a smartphone, up from 37 percent in 2012 and 73 percent in 2015. A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey from 2017 reveals that 43 percent of high-school students are playing computer or video games for more than three hours on an average school night. Given the binge viewing encouraged by the likes of Netflix and YouTube and the pressure to nurture social networks like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat, the total screen time for youngsters is probably well in excess of six hours a day, on average.

The growth in screen time is particularly problematic for sleep. Not only does it eat into the time available for rest, but the blue light emitted by LEDs, TVs, tablets and smartphones suppresses the body's secretion of melatonin, the hormone that signals it's time to sleep. Overdosing on screens at night effectively tells the brain it's still daytime, delaying the body's cues to sleep even further.

Parents should set real limits on screen time, model responsible use of devices and praise children who show signs of regulating their own media consumption. In the hour before bedtime, there should be a moratorium on bright lights in the home, avoiding devices and harsh LED bulbs often found in kitchens and bathrooms.

Excessive screen use is compounded by a dangerous tradition: starting high school abnormally early. Based on data available from 2015, 86 percent of high schools started before 8:30 a.m., and one in 10 high schools had a start time before 7:30 a.m. Prying a teenager out of bed at 6 a.m. to get to school is the equivalent of waking an adult at 4 a.m. The brain will be at its least active in the 24-hour cycle, which explains the monosyllabic grunts of teenagers as they lumber to the school bus.

In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that middle and high schools start no earlier than 8:30 a.m., a policy now backed by the American Medical Association, the C.D.C. and many other health organizations.

Whenever schools have managed the transition to a later start time, students get more sleep, attendance goes up, grades improve and there is a significant reduction in car accidents. The RAND Corporation estimated that opening school doors after 8:30 a.m. would contribute at least $83 billion to the national economy within a decade through improved educational outcomes and reduced car crash rates. The Brookings Institution calculates that later school start times would lead to an average increase in lifetime earnings of $17,500.

Since 2014, several states have passed legislation related to school start times. In August, California lawmakers passed a bill that would have gone further. By 2021, most middle and high schools across the state would have had to start at 8:30 a.m. or later.

It was landmark legislation, according to Terra Ziporyn Snider of the grass-roots organization Start School Later, which has been campaigning for change since 2011. "It is becoming less acceptable to run schools at unhealthy hours, and this bill reflects that sentiment," she said. But California's governor, Jerry Brown, vetoed the bill on Thursday amid opposition from local officials, a deeply regrettable decision. It shows a tragic disregard for both the mental health of children and for science.

But Ms. Ziporyn Snider remains upbeat: "Eventually a bill like this, created in the best interests of children, will pass. It's only a matter of time."

Parents need to be vocal about the reasons change is so important, joining forces with community leaders, sleep scientists, health professionals and educators to put school start times on the local, then state agendas.

Changing the operating hours of an institution so central to the community is far from easy. It requires strong leadership and adjustments by school bus companies and businesses offering services like child care and extracurricular clubs. But despite the upheaval involved, making such a shift would pay off in the long run. It is unthinkable that a school should operate with asbestos in the ceilings, with no central heating in winter or with rats in the kitchen. Starting school before 8:30 a.m. should be equally unacceptable.

Henry Nicholls (@WayOfThePanda) is a journalist, science teacher, trustee of Narcolepsy U.K. and the author of " Sleepyhead: The Neuroscience of a Good Night's Rest."

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page SR7 of the New York edition with the headline: End the Lessons in Sleep Deprivation. Order Reprints | Today's Paper | Subscribe

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Starting schools before 8:30 a.m. shows a tragic disregard for both the mental health of children and for science. By Henry Nicholls Mr. Nicholls is a journalist and a high school science teacher. This article has been updated to reflect news developments.

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Because I Love You by Max Lucado    Genre:  Narrative Fiction
Writing Techniques:  Plot Elements, Symbolism,  Foreshadowing, Powerful Endings, Word Choice/Study
Topic:  Unconditional Love
Purpose:  Entertain
-Sherry Shaffer

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Because I Love You has 2,318 ratings and 82 reviews. Ilze said: I take my hat off to Max Lucado for this series of books. It brings the whole concept of ...

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Mentor Text for Informational /Review Writing  

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Mentor Text for Informational /Review Writing  

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Another Star Is Born: Why Hollywood keeps returning to this tragic Cinderella story AV Club

Genre: Film Review / Comparison
Writing Technique: Voice, Evidence, Compare/Contrast, Formatting titles
Topic: Film, directing, producing, plot synopsis, comparisons of same plot across the decades

Purpose: Informational and persuasive review
-Joy Wagener

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Note: This piece contains specific plot details about the A Star Is Born movies.

Another A Star Is Born opened this past weekend, marking the fourth cinematic version of this particular title, making it a tale more covered by Hollywood than even King Kong. The template remains solid across all the versions: Janet Gaynor and Fredric March as Esther and Norman in 1937, Judy Garland and James Mason as Esther and Norman in 1954, Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson as Esther and John Norman in 1976, and Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga as Jackson and Ally in 2018. A troubled star on his way down falls in love with an ambitious star on her way up. With his help, her fame soon eclipses his. He can't handle her stardom and his failure. But she stands resolute in the end, stronger for having known him. Still, what is it about A Star Is Born that has made it resonate for movie audiences across the past 80 years?

There's one truly great, chills-inducing scene in Bradley Cooper's directorial debut, the latest...
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There's a lot to parse out here: On the woman's side, it's a Cinderella story with a fairy godmother you actually get to marry. For the men, there's a bit of that attractive Pygmalion factor. There's also some Frankenstein in the mix-not that Esther ever becomes a monster (although Ally leans that way briefly in the 2018 version), but that Norman self-destructs in part because of the success of his own creation.

A Star Is Born also has the advantage of pulling the curtain behind the glamorous worlds of movies and music, starting in a pre-era when the first Star Is Born almost wasn't given a go-ahead, as Hollywood pictures didn't usually do that well. (That movie even starts and ends with shots of the screenplay.) So the movie also works as a cautionary tale about the poison inherent in these footlights and spotlights-not that that's going to stop the Esther Blodgetts of the world one bit.

When we meet the first Esther Blodgett-Janet Gaynor in the 1937 version-she's a starstruck North Dakota farm girl dreaming of a glamorous Hollywood life. Unlike the ones who came after her, our only non-singing female star of A Star Is Born has no experience or established talent that would enable her belief that she is destined to have her name in lights. But she believes it, nonetheless, even after being cautioned by a studio secretary that her chances are one in a hundred thousand. Gaynor is such a winning actress herself-as evidenced by her own 1929 Oscar, the very first Academy Award for Best Actress-that we are soon firmly on her side, as she imitates various famous actresses of the day while waitressing at a party, or tries out her one line in a picture in a variety of accents and deliveries.

It's no wonder that Fredric March's Norman Maine is a goner. March sets the bar for future Normans by being suave and debonair when sober, and a nightmare monster version of himself when not. The magnetic appeal of the two stars-Gaynor's winsomeness and March's sophistication-makes it logical for the mentor relationship to slide into romance, even as Esther becomes more saintlike the worse Norman gets. The film also sets a precedent for A Star Is Born 's tragic denouement, ultimately ending with Norman's drowning in Malibu, followed by an inspiring pep talk to knock Esther out of mourning, and one of the greatest last lines in all of cinema, as the now widowed Esther greets her fans for the first time after her husband's death: "Hello everybody. This is Mrs. Norman Maine." It apparently took a while for the screenwriters to come up with that particular tear-inducing greeting, and it functions as a perfect final moment.

The 1954 version of A Star Is Born is considered the standout, primarily due to a best-ever performance by singing legend Judy Garland. Garland had played Gaynor's part on the Lux Radio Theater in 1942, with Walter Pidgeon as Norman. So she was familiar with the role, but her later version gives us a much glossier version of Technicolor Hollywood. As her Esther struggles with her Norman, Garland goes all in on her vaunted vulnerability to portray a loving wife helpless to help her husband. Gaynor and Gaga charm our attention out of us; Streisand demands it; but Garland straight-up earns it. Garland's achingly emotional performance only stands out more in the sea of the movie's extravagant musical numbers-although her co-star Mason was right when he noted that the 15-minute "Born In A Trunk" sequence breaks the film's momentum, and could have been shaved down some. To his credit, Mason is our most unabashedly emotional Norman-type character until Bradley Cooper's Jackson, sobbing when he falls off the wagon for what turns out to be the final time, or when he realizes that he's going to end his life to save his wife's career. March's journey into the ocean is a stoic death march; Mason's heartbreaking final scene in the same setting depicts a terrified man who feels he has no other options.

Garland's own best moment, in a nearly three-hour film filled with memorable moments, is her version of the "working Esther comes home exhausted to idle, homebound Norman" segment, which appears in some form in all four movies. She is so determined to entertain her docile husband that she effectively mimics a giant Warner Bros. musical extravaganza right in their living room, wearing only tights and a button-down shirt. She extracts enjoyment out of him-like she does to us all-sending us to different countries by using a floor lamp and a projector to mimic a studio set, while her husband crows delightedly. But as she's trying to incorporate her husband into her life, he then rattles off a series of phone messages, feeling himself diminished to being her answering service. The loveliness of the couple's reunion is wiped out by Norman's first relapse as Esther feebly protests behind him.

Those few minutes onscreen exemplify how Garland gave us so much of herself, like few performers do-which is why she's still an icon, over half a century later. Groucho Marx rightly called Garland's Best Actress Oscar loss for this performance to Grace Kelly's shrewish The Country Girl "the greatest robbery since Brink's." (It's speculated that only six votes separated the two.) Garland was so devastated by the loss, she didn't make another movie for the rest of the decade, retreating to the enveloping affection of her concert audiences.

The 1976 version of A Star Is Born is both hampered and helped, ironically, by the attention-seeking demands of its executive producer, musical conceptualist, and star: Barbra Streisand. She and her then-boyfriend Jon Peters put the film together as Streisand was ready to step into the iconic spotlight that Judy Garland once owned, shifting A Star Is Born 's focus from movies to music. Streisand and Garland (and Gaga, for that matter) have once-in-a-lifetime voices, but it's hard to imagine the hubris necessary to attempt a remake of a movie that contains one of the greatest vocal performances of all time: Garland's achingly inconsolable "The Man That Got Away."

Despite utilizing songwriters like Kenny Loggins, "Piña Colada Song" scribe Rupert Holmes, and "Rainbow Connection" writer Paul Williams, few songs in the 1976 soundtrack can approach the earlier movie's musical peaks. Most sound like lesser FM easy-listening radio hits; it's like taking out a butter knife to carve into a mountain right next to Mount Rushmore. Nevertheless, Streisand's Star Is Born was the second-highest grossing feature release of 1976, just behind and beating out future classics All The President's Men, , and Taxi Driver. It won the Golden Globe for Best Picture-Comedy Or Musical, as well as acting Globes for Streisand and Kristofferson, and an Oscar for Streisand and Williams for film's best song, the lacy, longing "Evergreen."

Streisand even tried to drag Elvis Presley in to star opposite her-a missed opportunity, as he notoriously got a raw deal in the movies. But then we wouldn't have Kris Kristofferson as John Norman Howard, and he's the best part of the film. Somehow, he's still able to sell his earnest, decaying superstar against a co-star so into herself that at one point she literally dissolves onscreen into the sun. (See also: Prince Of Tides.) The rumor is that due to frequent squabbles on set, Streisand directed some scenes herself. Kristofferson said working with the diva "may have cured me of the movies."

It's surprising, then, that the 1976 A Star Is Born, which shifts from movies to music, starts out with a destructive Norman concert, not a plucky Esther audition. Kristofferson's John Norman snorts up and drinks before the show, forgets the words to familiar songs, and gets into a fight with an extremely large audience. He then heads out to a small club where he spies Esther's naturally life-changing set (just like how Jackson meets Ally in 2018), and gets into another fight. Like the ones who came before her, Streisand's energetic, super-confident Esther appears to be flawless except for her love for a guy who's on his way down. Her stardom is atmospheric, taking off like a rocket after John (again, like Cooper's Jackson) hands his stage over to her during a concert. Like all A Star Is Born couples, Streisand and Kristofferson sell the romance, even as theirs frequently devolves to them rolling around on the ground and laughing-in the mud, in a bed with whipped cream, wherever. Streisand pays her own homage to Mason's careful makeover of Garland in 1954 by painting makeup on the face of Kristofferson in the bathtub, a nice shift to feminine power. Cooper picks up that homage, as Ally does the same thing to Jackson in their bathtub.

And that's not the only parallel across decades: Watching these films back-to-back, it's surprising how much of the overall structure is absolutely intact, like tracings of a drawing you could lay over each other. It's not Gus Van Sant Psycho-level, but when a scene works, it works, in 1937 or 1976. Some edits act as connective tissues between the four films: 1937's group effort to transform "Esther Victoria Blodgett" into the stage name "Vicki Lester" morphs into Garland picking up her new name with her studio paycheck in 1954, to Streisand's Esther Hoffman refusing to change her name at all, while Gaga's Ally gets a whole new name entirely.

The consistencies are significant: like the couple eloping, or the awards show scene in which the husband destroys his wife's victory speech by showing up drunk in the middle of it (although Jackson peeing himself on national television adds a considerable amount of horror), or the importance of the "I just wanted one more look" line, which occurs in all four movies. (The 2018 one is already a meme.) The men all say it to the woman twice: Norman, Norman, and Jackson the first time they meet their future wife; John Norman when Esther's on her way to film a TV special. The final time he says it is the last time they'll see each other, right before his death, so that Streisand's Esther ends her movie with a song called "With One More Look At You," an anguished showstopper that shows her vocal power. You can even break down the Star Is Born s into parallel pairs, with winning winsome brunettes Gaynor and Garland of the Hollywood movie-focused versions, and the "unconventional" beauty (unconventional only by insane Hollywood standards) of the immensely talented pop idols Streisand and Gaga.

Through Streisand's own involvement, her 1970s feminist Esther offers us an anger the earlier versions did not. Gaynor and Garland's Esthers are supportive and placating, weakly smiling even as Norman accidentally smacks his wife across the face onstage at a public event. While previous Esthers only reveal their resentment to friend Oliver, the supportive studio head, Streisand's Esther is understandably furious, screaming at her husband to fight his addiction, to fight for her, instead of letting his alcoholism rob them of every shred of happiness they've been able to salvage. And Ally and Jackson are on even more of an equal-level playing field as they actually engage in a vicious argument, the most venom exhibited of any Star Is Born pairing, after she comes home to find him drunk in the morning.

For all its talk of stardom, and the considerable emphasis on romance, A Star Is Born is also a story rooted in addiction, as much as The Lost Weekend or Days Of Wine And Roses. BradleyCooper, who worked on the screenplay and makes his directorial debut with this movie, understands this. Cooper uses all of the previous A Star Is Born movies as a framework, with all the various screenwriters (including Moss Hart, Joan Didion, and John Gregory Dunne) in the credits. He then adds so much to that framework, fleshing it out for a now more-sophisticated audience, which is why Cooper has audiences sobbing in theaters all over the country.

There's no specific reason why the male character is so troubled in past iterations, for example. Jackson's backstory fills in a lot of the questions we have on why he is the way he is. The first three A Star Is Born s begin with the Norman character a star in free-fall. Cooper's Jackson does drugs and drinks too much at the beginning of the film, but it's also Ally who gets in a bar fight, not him. He's still in control enough to be able to take care of her after her injury. But soon enough, we see him passing out on the floor and learn about tinnitus and a dysfunctional childhood, contributing factors to his alcoholism.

Also, Cooper's theories on fame and celebrity take important turns from the original story. The three Esthers and Normans wanted to be stars because they just wanted to be stars. But Jackson talks a lot about how important it is to have something to say, to an audience that wants to hear it. When Ally's celebrity becomes a shallow parody of Lady Gaga's own, with pop songs sporting meaningless lyrics instead of the poetry she's capable of, it's even harder for Jackson, because he feels like he should have steered her more. Unlike the Esthers, Ally is not as ambitious when her story starts, and the beginning of her career is closely intertwined with her eventual husband's. She's also the only female Star Is Born character who loses herself and her own authenticity (as she puts it, "what makes me talented") to her fame, unfamiliar in orange hair and supported by backup dancers. Jackson continually cautions how easy it is to get caught up in things that don't matter, and Ally only really becomes true to herself again in an homage to him after his death.

While the new star's fame appears to hasten her husband's demise, in reality, he was already headed down when they first meet. In fact, maybe her love holds off his eventual destruction for a few more years, offering a glimpse of happiness that's all the more devastating due to how golden-and brief-it is. A sober Norman or John or Jackson, in the various talented actors' portrayals, is a dream husband: experienced, supportive, and devoted to his wife. The drunken husband who ruins his wife's big moment on Oscar night is the polar opposite, as is Jackson, who tells his wife she's ugly. In the Garland version, Esther's dressing-room breakdown over Norman's alcoholism to studio chief Oliver is especially painful, paralleling Garland's own lifelong addiction issues that would lead to her early death at the age of 47. "Can you explain it to me, Oliver," she sobs, "What is it that makes him want to destroy himself?" She could be demanding the same of herself.

Of all the Star Is Born husband deaths, Jackson's may be the most devastating. Unlike the Normans, who want to save their wife's career, and John's accidental drunken car crash, Jackson's death seems to be more in defeat to his addiction, certain that what Ally's manager Rez is saying is true, and that his relapse is just an inevitability. It's a tragic end to a too-familiar tale: The destructive force of addiction ravages our relationships, our creativity, and our lives, turning fairy tales into nightmares.

After Jackson's death, and the requisite pep talk by his brother, Bobby (Sam Elliott), for her return to the stage, the brunette-again Ally gives a nod to 1937 and 1954 by announcing, "This is Ally Maine," and to 1976 by going into a vocal performance. Like Streisand's Esther, Ally uses a song of her husband's to depict her feelings of loss. Streisand's finale performance as Esther is a long, static head-and-shoulders shot, as Esther's "One More Look At You" vaults into her husband's signature song "Just Watch Me Now," claiming it as her own. Ally's "I'll Never Love Again" ballad seems tragic until we get to view the spirit in which it was written by Jackson: She'll never love again in that same way. Like all female protagonists of A Star Is Born, she carries the best of her lost husband inside her: Her success is not only her triumph, but his, and his legacy will continue as long as she keeps performing.

The 2018 version of A Star Is Born shows how to "breathe new soul into an old Hollywood fable," as our film critic A.A. Dowd put it, transforming the two-dimensional stiffness of the early Technicolor era into something breathtakingly honest and warm. It's a classic story with many elements of myth, but Cooper improved on the preceding 1976 version with vulnerable performances and dialogue that seems almost improvisational, and more intimate. Many are rightly calling Lady Gaga a revelation as an actor, and pointing to Cooper's own well-honed musical skills and devastating portrayal of both the sober and straight versions of Jackson (especially for someone who says he hasn't had a drink since the age of 29). For Cooper's directorial debut, and for Gaga's first starring role, it was an ideal choice, despite how outlandish the announcement of this version may have seemed at first. It works so well that maybe we haven't seen the last A Star Is Born.

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Another Star Is Born: Why Hollywood keeps returning to this tragic Cinderella story

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Note: This piece contains specific plot details about the A Star Is Born movies. Another A Star Is Born opened this past weekend, marking the fourth cinematic version of this particular title, making it a tale more covered by Hollywood than even King Kong.

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Mentor Text for Memoir/Informational Writing (6-12)The Autobiography of Gucci Mane- NPR Interview

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Mentor Text for Memoir/Informational Writing (6-12)The Autobiography of Gucci Mane- NPR Interview

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Genre:informational/memoir
Writing Technique: dialouge, colloquial language, conversational writing (exchange)
Topic: Gucci Mane
Purpose: inform/clarifying the 'who' 'why' 'how'
- Lori Bolone

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Gucci Mane has an extensive resume. As a founding father of trap music, Mane's been carving out the rap genre since 2001 when he put out his first underground release: Str8 Drop Records Presents Gucci Mane La Flare. Since then, he has amassed a long list of musical achievements: dozens of mixtapes, singles, collaborations and eight studio albums.

But before all of that, he was Radric Davis, growing up in Atlanta and watching his dad hustle people on the streets for money.

"You know, he had all kinds of games and scams, like three card molly, shaking the pea, pigeon drop," Gucci Mane tells NPR's Ailsa Chang. "All of these are little scams that he learned - tricks of the trade that he learned in the streets."

And Gucci learned them, too. Through much of his climb to the top, he employed these skills while dealing drugs, partially to finance his musical career. He rapped about these exploits in his music, and slowly became known as the rapper who keeps it real.

Now, he has released a book, which he started writing while in a maximum-security prison for a firearms possession charge between 2014 and 2016. That time period also marked a turning point, when he made a promise to himself that he would change his life; in his words, to "start doing better."

Fittingly titled The Autobiography Of Gucci Mane, the book touches on his hustle growing up and how that shaped his image as a rapper, plus the transformations that led him to where he is today. You can hear his conversation with Ailsa Chang in the audio player, and read on for an edited transcript.
Ailsa Chang: In your book, you call your dad a "con artist." How was he a con artist, and what did you learn from him?
Gucci Mane: He just was kind of like, always on point, or trying to be as sharp as he can - or, you know, read when trouble was coming. I just watched his nature and I watched his mannerisms. He didn't really teach it to me, but I kind of adapted to it because I seen it.
You imitated it.
Exactly.
So back then, when you were barely 13, 14 years old and you started dealing drugs, it sounded like you were already really obsessed with money. Why was that?
I think I was obsessed with money, definitely, coming up because I seen so many people not having money. I seen so many people staying in shotgun houses, or not really having good shoes on their feet. And I went to sleep hungry - I knew what it was like to be poor; I knew what it was like to have your lights off, or to have to boil water to take a bath. And that never left me. I seen the way everything was about a dollar. I seen how it could just tear up a whole household. So in my mind it was always like, try to make yourself not be a burden on nobody. Try to keep yourself at least financially independent enough where you're not a burden on your family because they don't got it.
When you were quite young as an adult, you were breaking into houses, robbing, expanding your drug dealing all over Georgia. Did it feel justified in your mind because at least you were making a living and you were not depending on other people to feed you?
It wasn't justified. I think it's kind of like, I know in myself - even thinking of who I was hurting or how risky it was - the chances I was taking. It was kind of like, I just want to get to a point where I'm comfortable, I'm straight, I'm well off. At that time - in hindsight, looking at it now - that's what I thought was the way to get there. I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life. But at the same time, I knew that I needed money to do what I had to do.
When you started your rap career, you would brag about these exploits in your music - which, in a way, only strengthened your reputation on the street as a drug dealer. So I'm just curious, did you live the lifestyle for the music, or was the music a way to enhance your image as a drug dealer back then?
To be honest, once I got my first charge at like 20, 21, music was like: This is what I'm going to do. I don't want to sell drugs no more.
Did you feel like you could get out of it, though?
Yeah. But at that point it was like, "I want to be a professional rapper," you know what I'm saying? I want to get in the music business. But at the same time, it was like, I still need money to pay for studio time. I still need money to get myself out there.
You're called the trap god. Can you just explain: What is trap music? When I hear a rap song, how do I know when I'm hearing it: "Oh, this is trap."
Trap, by definition, is a hustle or a spot or the act of just grinding. When I came up, trap was crumbling. Trap meant that you was in a drug infested place, neighborhood, house. The music was about that lifestyle, anything pertaining to that lifestyle. But right now, it's broad; it's kind of like hard hitting beats, and just talking about the drug culture.
I want to just rewind a little bit, because I'm thinking about this time in your life when you're in your twenties and you're drug dealing, in part, to finance your music career - did you feel like your life was precarious? That this wasn't sustainable indefinitely?
100 percent. I felt like selling drugs was going to have a terrible consequence at the end if I kept going.
You had this looming dread.
It just was facts. I've seen how bad it can be. I seen people who had serious cases and did serious time at a young age. I seen people getting robbed. I had friends, people who was getting killed, so I already knew that once I had that first charge that I gotta do something. I kind of made a conscious decision like, I'm going to be a rapper. And I'm going to be serious about it. No matter what happen, I'm going to make it happen.
So you were living the trap life as you were releasing these albums, and part of that lifestyle was this drink called lean, which you were hooked on for many years. What is lean?
Lean is cough syrup. Though I guess it's nicknamed lean because you take the cough syrup and you would mix it with a soda --

-- But not just any cough syrup, we're not talking Robitussin. This is codeine.

Codeine with Promethazine. Over the counter syrup, definitely with a prescription. I was addicted to that for several years and it derailed my career. I was doing a recreational drug when it was time for me to be 100 percent dialed-in.
You were in and out of county jail for much of your young adult life. And in 2014, you were convicted of firearms possession and you entered federal prison for the first time. And it was at that time that you decided, "This is it; this is going to be a turning point for me." And I'm just curious: Why at that point? Because all of your problems with law enforcement up until then: That was part of your image. It was part of the image in your music; it was part of your image that your fans connected with, in some ways. But what made your time behind bars in 2014 suddenly different?
Well, I got arrested in 2013, but I didn't get sentenced to go to prison, I guess, until 2014. So, I actually made the decision to change my life in 2013 when I was first arrested, before I even got the time.
Why was that?
Because I was facing a bunch of time. So that right there is what made me come to the decision that I need to change my life. No matter what the outcome or what the sentence is, I'm gonna start doing better.
Why did you decide to write a book during prison, a book about your life?
I just had time to sit down and reflect. And I was reading books. I had read Johnny Cash's biography, I read Mike Tyson's biography, I read two biographies on Jimi Hendrix. And then when I read the two biographies on Jimi Hendrix I was like: Let me tell my story myself. And that just came up with the idea, and I just started writing, and I wrote like 30, 40 pages my first time when I sat down to write the book.
What is the story that you wanted to write about yourself? Is your book a story about redemption, or is it a story about glorifying the guy you were before federal prison? Because honestly, it doesn't seem like you regret a lot of the things you had done.
I think it's just a fascinating story. It's not a regrettable biography. It's just truth. It's the underdog story because I been jumping hurdles my whole life. I done made a lot of mistakes and I feel like I'm a resilient person. I shook it off and I kept going and I just want to let people know. I hope when people read my book, that's what they get out of it, like: "OK, Gucci went through a lot, he's doing something that maybe a lot of people would love to do - but at the same time, he took it for granted at the time and made mistakes but he bounced back from it and he's better for it." And let them know, "if he can do that, it's never too late for me to turn my life around because look what he did."

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'The Autobiography Of Gucci Mane': A Story Of Rap And Rebirth

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Gucci Mane has an extensive resume. As a founding father of trap music, Mane's been carving out the rap genre since 2001 when he put out his first underground release: Str8 Drop Records Presents Gucci Mane La Flare.

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Genre: Opinion
Writing Technique: Using evidence to support argument
Topic: Dangers of playing football
Purpose: Persuade

-Deb Drew

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Focus on sports concussions can obscure the deaths that continue each year. Jordan McNair is not even the latest: Our view

You can add the name Jordan McNair to the list of college, high school and middle school players who might have needlessly died for the love of football.

A simple, well-known procedure - immersing McNair, 19, in a tub of ice water - when he collapsed at an off-season University of Maryland workout in May could well have saved his life. But it didn't happen. This failure drew national attention to how unprepared many football programs are to keep their players safe.

The focus on concussions can obscure the deaths that continue to occur each year. Last year, 13 high school and college players died from incidents that include heat stroke, head injuries and sudden cardiac arrest.

Just two weeks ago in Crowley, Texas, Kyrell McBride-Johnson, 13, collapsed at a middle school practice and died that night. His mother told The Dallas Morning News that he was signaling for water before collapsing. An autopsy has not been completed, but the death of anyone so young raises troubling questions.

OPPOSING VIEW: We're working to make football even safer

The simple truth is that player safety at too many schools and colleges comes in a poor second to winning. Even as the climate warms, colleges, high schools and middle schools are starting football season earlier than they used to.

Five decades ago, Notre Dame and Michigan opened their seasons on the third Saturday of September and Ohio State on the fourth Saturday. This year, spurred by longer seasons and lucrative TV schedules, all three teams played their first game Sept. 1, necessitating practices in midsummer heat. High schools and middle schools mimic the college schedules. (In 1968, the NFL season began on Sept. 14; this year, it kicks off this Thursday.)

Starting the season later could by itself reduce the number of heat stroke deaths. But even with the current schedule, schools know how to prevent potentially fatal incidents and to rescue students if they occur. In 2013, more than a dozen leading sports medicine groups and the National Federation of State High School Associations endorsed a list of best practices to prevent injuries and save lives.

Grading states against that list and other smart practices, the University of Connecticut's Korey Stringer Institute found that 28 states have failed to put in place half the measures to keep students safe. Even the states that scored highest in the 2018 study - New Jersey and North Carolina - have less than 80% in place. California and Colorado, with the worst records, employ less than a third of them.

That's inexcusable. If states have the wherewithal to run high school football programs, they have the wherewithal to do more to ensure that students don't die.

Many of the policies are based on common sense and carry minimal costs. Preventing heat stroke, for example, requires players in hot weather to acclimate: no more than one practice a day, and no practice lasting more than three hours. But the majority of states don't require this, according to Douglas Casa, the Stringer Institute's CEO. Nor do all states require cold-water immersion tubs be on hand; a tub costs about $150, can be purchased at a hardware store, and is known to save lives. Many don't have an emergency plan posted on the field and known to all school staff.

And just a handful require an athletic trainer on site for all "collision/contact" practices. Yes, this costs some money, but if a school can afford to maintain a football field and pay for coaches, insurance, uniforms and travel, the cost of a single staff member with medical training is not too much to ask.

More than 110 years ago, after at least 18 college players died during a single season, President Theodore Roosevelt saved the game by pressing for commonsense safety measures.

Today, everyone knows what the solutions are. It's long past time for state athletic officials and lawmakers to act.
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Football safety not scoring high enough in schools

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Focus on sports concussions can obscure the deaths that continue each year. Jordan McNair is not even the latest: Our view You can add the name Jordan McNair to the list of college, high school and middle school players who might have needlessly died for the love of football.