# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
I Recommend Eating Chips (Published 2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
When our horizons are narrow, junk food — shelf-stable, reliably flavored and yet endlessly unique — offers us a taste of infinity.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
he thing that separates human beings from other animals is our extraordinary capacity for complex, abstract thought. This is what has given rise to our diverse cultures, our scientific achievements, our ability to envisage the future and, hopefully, make it better than what has gone before. But our imperfect minds have also generated terrible mistakes and dangerous ideologies. If we don't know how to distinguish bad thinking from good, we can end up believing what we shouldn't, and behaving in ways that are harmful to ourselves, to others, and to the planet.

Philosophers are, of course, the archetypal expert thinkers. Their discipline is often portrayed as a kind of formal method that lists fallacies to be avoided and distinguishes between deductive and inductive reasoning, invalid and sound arguments. These things have their place. But philosophy cannot be reduced to mere technique. Thinking well also requires adopting the right attitudes and being prepared to nurture effective habits. Without these "intellectual virtues" even the cleverest end up merely playing theoretical games.

Throughout history wise men and women have applied themselves to these problems in the service of their own development and that of humankind. Rather than start from scratch, why not draw on thousands of years of experience, and millions of hours of reflection and practice? Here is what some of the greatest philosophers in history can tell us about how to think - and live - well.

1. Be sincere

"A wrangler is one who aims only at victory, being indifferent whether the arguments which he employs support his own contention or that of his opponent."
Akapāda Gautama
Written some time between the sixth and second centuries BCE, supposedly by Akapāda Gautama, the Indian classic the Nyāya Sūtras is the first great treatise on the principles of reasoning. Gautama distinguishes between three kinds of debate. In jalpa (wrangling) the aim is victory, while vitanda (cavilling) is concerned wholly with criticising the other side. But in good or honest discussion, vada, the aim is truth.

Sometimes philosophy descends into adversarial combat. But the best thinkers avoid wrangling or cavilling. One such philosopher, Bernard Williams, identified sincerity as one of the two primary "virtues of truth", alongside accuracy.

The most dangerous enemy of sincerity is not deliberate deception but the desire to be right overpowering the desire to get to the truth. Sincerity in thought therefore requires overcoming an ego that hates admitting being wrong.

2. Be charitable

It's easier to dismiss people we disagree with if we attribute to them obviously foolish or stupid beliefs. But just as we are not as smart as we like to think we are, other people are not usually as stupid as we take them to be.

The best way to understand any position is to ask what assumptions would make it rational

To avoid what David Hume called the "vulgar error" of "putting nothing but nonsense into the Mouth of the Adversary" we should employ the principle of charity. This requires us to consider the best, strongest version of an opponent's argument, not only the worst. This may be a better case than they themselves can muster. If you were a remainer during the EU referendum campaign, for example, it would have been all too easy to brush aside some of the crass claims made by the official leave side. But there were more serious, less easily dismissed arguments, and those were the ones that most demanded a response.

Applying the principle of charity can expose flaws as well as strengths. Janet Radcliffe Richards believes the best way to understand any position is to ask what assumptions would make it rational. Why would a family think a drunk relative was a suitable babysitter, but only until they discovered she was an atheist? Their conclusion is rational if you think that the risk of being led into hell is worse than the risk of being harmed through negligence. The family's reasoning was flawless: it was their premises that were wrong.

3. Be humble

Philippa Foot was one of the best British philosophers of the 20th century. Yet she told me, "I couldn't give a five-minute lecture on dozens of philosophers. I couldn't tell you about Spinoza. I'm very uneducated really."

Mary Warnock was another philosopher with a keen sense of humility, saying: "I haven't done very much work and I haven't done it very well."

Both women's remarks sound ludicrously self-deprecating to anyone who knows their work. In fact, they reveal a self-awareness and honesty that helped them to excel. Foot was probably right to say that she wasn't as good a scholar as many of her peers and wasn't especially clever in the sense of having an ability to process complex logical calculations quickly. Rather than trying to compete with those who were, she played to her strengths: great insight, a penetrating mind, and a good nose for what's right.

Similarly, Warnock's excellence was not as an original thinker. She was a great explainer of others' ideas and, most importantly, a brilliant chair of ethics commissions which helped bring experts together to make public policy. She left a greater legacy than much work by "better" philosophers.

There are times when confidence and conviction are needed. But when we're trying to think as clearly as possible, their absence is a virtue, not a vice. We should all become self-aware about where our intellectual strengths and weaknesses lie. Social media shows how the temptation to opine over and above our competence is strong, and must be resisted through intellectual humility.

4. Keep it simple, but not simplistic
"It is futile to do with more things
that which can be done with fewer."
William of Ockham
The principle of Occam's razor - one should not multiply entities beyond necessity - was sadly never expressed so clearly by the 14th-century Franciscan friar to whom it is attributed. Sometimes called the parsimony principle, it has come to refer to the idea that all other things being equal, a simpler explanation is preferable to a more complicated one.

Applying the principle, however, is no simple matter. The key proviso is "all other things being equal". All-too-human cock-ups are more common than complicated conspiracies, but some things really are conspiracies. Bombs and bullets are usually fired by adversaries, but there are also false-flag operations.

Illustration: Till Lauer/The Guardian

So Occam's razor really needs the addendum "only expect as much simplicity in an explanation as the thing being explained allows". The preference for simplicity is a virtue so long as it is accompanied by a refusal to deny real-world complexities. We should look for explanations that are neither more convoluted nor more simplistic than is necessary.

5. Watch your language

In the Analects, Kongzi (also known as Confucius) says that the first thing he would do if he were to administer the government would be to "rectify names". He explains: "If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success."

Philosophers have always been keen to define their terms and use language accurately. In the 20th century, this perhaps went too far, with some philosophers thinking that all they could do was "conceptual analysis" - or figuring out what, precisely, a term might refer to. But even that is a vital task.

Think of how common it is for the misuse of language to assist the misuse of political power: Putin's "special military operation", or the labelling of plans to fund care of the elderly as a "dementia tax".

Getting words right sometimes requires changing them. "Gay marriage" used to be an oxymoron but most have come to agree that it is right that the meaning of "marriage" has evolved. Right now, there is a heated debate about what "woman" and "man" mean in relation to trans people. There is no way of resolving this unless both sides acknowledge that they are engaged in advocacy for their preferred usages, not simply trying to show that one set of meanings is objectively correct.

6. Be eclectic

Onora O'Neill's self-suspicion captures the value and peril of casting a wide intellectual net. As a leading bioethicist, O'Neill has had to learn from medics, biologists, public health professionals, scientific researchers, civil servants and more. None of these experts is competent to resolve thorny issues like those of gene editing or embryo research alone.

Breadth of thought always requires the sacrifice of some depth - be prepared to move out of your intellectual comfort zones

Many - maybe most - important issues cannot be resolved with just one kind of expertise. To think about how to feed a nation you need to call on the knowledge of dieticians, ethicists, farmers, ecologists, cooks and economists. Climate science isn't enough to generate a policy response to global warming, you also need to know about technology, geopolitics, economics and agriculture.

Breadth used to be a typical characteristic of philosophers. Aristotle studied nature in a lagoon on the island of Lesbos, Descartes dissected animals as well as concepts, Hume was better known in his day as a historian than as a philosopher. Narrow specialisation is a recent development.

Breadth of thought, however, always requires the sacrifice of some depth. That's why you need O'Neill's acute sense of being a trespasser. We have to be prepared to move out of our intellectual comfort zones, but we also have to be careful, in unfamiliar spaces, to retain a sense of humility.

7. Think for yourself, not by yourself

In his essay What Is Enlightenment Kant defined immaturity as "the inability to make use of one's own understanding without direction from another", adding that: "'Have courage to make use of your own understanding' is thus the motto of enlightenment."

Has the pendulum swung too far towards striking out on your own, though? As the philosopher Alvin Goldman says: "You can get more knowledge by using social sources, that is by drawing on the experiences of others and what they have to contribute. They have maybe better ideas, maybe better education than you do on certain subjects, or they have just read more about it than you have."

As Bhikhu Parekh argues, our willingness to draw on outside knowledge should extend to thinkers beyond our own cultures. Just as it is arrogant to think that we as individuals have nothing to learn from our peers, to assume any one tradition has a monopoly on making sense of the world is pure chauvinism. Our minds work best when in dialogue with others.

8. Seek clarity not certainty

Philosophers - and I suspect all of us - tend towards one of two different objectives: clarity and certainty. I think that after more than two millennia of seeing which approach is more fruitful, it is clear, if not certain, that the clarifiers have won. One of the few certainties we have is that certainty of any interesting kind is rarely possible. If you seek greater clarity, on the other hand, new vistas open up.

Another reason to be suspicious of certainty is that it is seductive. For example, psychologists such as Elizabeth Loftus tell us that in court cases witnesses who express certainty about what they have seen tend to be believed more, but confidence is an unreliable indicator of accuracy. Certainty is also the friend of dogmatism, arrogance and fundamentalism. Those who seek it should be careful what they wish for.

9. Pay attention

Iris Murdoch was a philosopher and a novelist. These two vocations were intimately linked. As her colleague Mary Midgley put it: "On Murdoch's view of ethics, we learn what is the right thing to do by attending to what is the case and increasing our understanding of reality." For example, empathy teaches us more about what is needed to treat a person well than moral theory.

Paying close attention, rather than constructing arguments, lies at the heart of the best philosophising

Paying close attention, rather than constructing arguments, lies at the heart of the best philosophising. Descartes is famous for his line "I think, therefore I am" but this is an argument in appearance only. It is a truth arrived at by observation: when you try to doubt that you are thinking, your doubting shows that you must be existing.

It was also by paying close attention that Hume saw how Descartes was wrong to conclude that this thinker whose existence was certain was an indivisible, mental substance. Hume, like the Buddha, invited us to attend more carefully and observe that we are only ever aware of particular thoughts, feelings and sensations, not an "I" that stands behind them.

Arguments do matter, but assessing the validity of our reasoning requires paying close attention to its progression more than it does knowledge of formal logic. Good thinking is just thinking with full attention.

10. Follow the mean

One principle that can be applied almost universally is Aristotle's incredibly useful doctrine of the mean, a version of which is also taught by Kongzi. This says that for practically every virtue, there is not an opposite vice but an excess and a deficiency. Generosity is the mean between profligacy and tightfistedness, understanding between lack of sympathy and indulgence, pride between self-hatred and arrogance.

The same applies to the virtues of thinking. Aristotle said: "It is the mark of the trained mind never to expect more precision in the treatment of any subject than the nature of that subject permits." You can be too precise as well as too vague, you can be too understanding of a view you disagree with as well as too dismissive, you can think too much for yourself or too little.

That is why every intellectual virtue needs to come with a warning not to slavishly apply it: follow the argument wherever it leads but don't follow it to absurdity; question everything but not all the time; define your terms as clearly as you can but don't think all terms can be defined with scientific precision. Even virtuous habits of thought can become vices if they are misapplied. The virtues of thinking require balance and judgment - and, thankfully, these are skills any one of us can learn.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Think yourself better: 10 rules of philosophy to live by

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
From Aristotle to Iris Murdoch: what the greatest minds of the past 2,500 years have to tell us about the good life

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
ATXyz: The Austin Texas Youth Zine

ATXyz was the library's teen-run magazine!

ATXyz is currently in "dormant" status due to a decline in submissions.

Read ATXyz

Click an issue below, or check it out in the Library Catalog!

Send us your art / writing!

ATXyz is currently in a dormant status.

We didn't get enough submissions to create a new issue so we've closed the submission form.

If you have questions or want to talk about a future issue of the zine, please email kathleen.houlihan [at] austintexas.gov -- thank you!

SHARE

Share this page with friends who may also want to read back issues of the ATXyz, with: tinyurl.com/atxyouthzine

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Click on the blue and pink tabs tabs to navigate through this site. ATXyz is the Austin Texas Youth Zine, a literary and art magazine published by a teen editorial board from across Central Texas.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A series about young people coming of age and the spaces where they create community.

# data[].attributes.headline
My Mother's Fried Chicken was a Link to My Past and My Daughter's Future

# data[].attributes.subject
My Mother's Fried Chicken was a Link to My Past and My Daughter's Future

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Frying chicken right is like riding a bike backward. Or writing a sonnet. It's hard, sometimes elusive-but in the face of loss, it can also be life-giving.

This is All on the Table, a column featuring writers we love sharing stories of food, conflict, and community.

The last meal I shared with my mother was in a capacious hospital room in Chesapeake, Virginia. It was breakfast time and the sun was a carefree soul galloping through the window like a wild horse. Having not eaten much in the 48 hours since she'd been admitted with complications of sarcoidosis, she was quite hungry. So I fed her. Spooned the applesauce. Placed in her mouth a few ice chips from the water glass she couldn't finish (crunching ice always gratified her). That was 2017. The year my heart broke into a million jagged puzzle pieces.

None of us is ever prepared for death. When a great tree falls, the birds, with no branch to perch on, scatter. Looking for a new home. In the four years since my graceful mother has passed, I've been searching. Thumbing through old scrapbooks, sprinkling her ashes in places we lived and traveled- Brooklyn and St. Croix and Fayetteville, North Carolina-all in an effort to find some solace. To find a new home.

In 2018, when the American School in London invited me to become its inaugural Innovator-in-Residence, I welcomed the opportunity for that solace, along with a professional reboot. I'd gotten into a writing rhythm that, while successful, felt almost too comfortable. The process of coming up with a beginning, middle, and end was akin to riding a bike for me, and I could cruise through a story, arms akimbo, head to the wind. I needed to challenge my storytelling normal, become inspired in new and exciting ways, learn to pop a wheelie.

Part of moving yourself forward in a life-giving way is to take the things from the past that have helped shape and mold you and use them as anchors to the future. My own vision of what lay ahead came during two farewell dinners hosted by friends in the summer of 2019. First, award-winning children's book illustrator Melissa Sweet crafted homemade lobster rolls the size of my arms in her palsy-walsy Maine home. Then I drove south to dine alfresco-grilled snapper, cheddar biscuits, Summer in a Bottle rosé-in celebration of Jacqueline Woodson's latest novel at her family's country estate. These two women not only burned in the kitchen, but laughed and told stories and answered phone calls and helped with homework and listened. At the same time. With the cool and calm of a river flowing in a forest. Just like my mother used to do. Determined to do the same, the new Kwame would find his way home not only by moving to London but by cooking.

In my first few weeks there, I figured out how to catch a bus to Maida Vale, write at an outdoor café while sipping English breakfast tea, and take refuge at the bottom of the London Library when it rained. I also learned to make some pretty tasty pasta-fettuccine Alfredo, spinach lasagna-that my finicky 11-year-old daughter, Samayah, actually enjoyed.

As the weeks turned to months, I discovered the best walking route to Samayah's new school. I learned how to listen and acknowledge her cries for independence and smile when she grabbed my hand and held it, our fingers braided like the cornrows her mother designed. I learned how to answer her not-so-random questions about why can't we get a car or do you have to walk me the whole way or can we have a break from pasta... and make Granny's fried chicken for dinner?

"If you read good books, when you write, good books will come out of you," wrote Natalie Goldberg in Writing Down the Bones. Thus, I imagined, if you read good cookbooks, good food would come out of your kitchen. So I immersed myself in a plethora of cooking primers, instructional videos, and blogs. I cooked daily while listening to music, helping Samayah with homework, and just being in the moment. My recipe file fattened. Some meals turned out delicious the first time: Fish chowder. Ghanaian red red. Lobster mac and cheese (which almost didn't happen 'cause lobster meat in London is more expensive than beluga caviar). Others required experimentation: Tuscan bread salad. Blueberry scones. Beer-battered fish. Unfortunately, my buttermilk pancakes looked, and tasted, more like crepes. Fortunately, my daughter loves crepes. But she also loves chicken, and she kept asking me to make it.

During my adolescent summers, my mother often took us to Virginia Beach where we'd spend the day building sandcastles, swimming too far out, and screaming bloody murder when we got bit by a jellyfish. Two things loom large in those memories. One was this: As hungry as we were from playing in the water, we hated getting out of it for lunch because of my mother's belief that one must wait 30 minutes to swim after eating (or face severe cramps due to lack of blood flow to the stomach and thus drown). The other: Once you bit into one of my mother's crispy, juicy fried chicken drumsticks, the complaining stopped. She charmed us.

Until she was five, Samayah was a vegetarian-until we sent her to my mother's for her own summer weekend. As the story goes, Granny packed the three visiting grandchildren into her burgundy Hyundai one Saturday morning and carted them off to Virginia Beach for a day of swimming and sandcastles. Around midday she summoned each of them from the water and handed out brown paper bags full of chicken. When Samayah came home I understood the resoluteness in her smile. "Daddy, I'm not a vegetarian anymore."

Fried chicken was one of my mother's signature dishes, as it was my grandmother's, and her grandmother's before that. Now that I wanted to continue the tradition for my daughter in my modest London kitchen, I needed the recipe. So I called around to my sisters, my aunts, even my father (who only ever lovingly made two dishes, mustard mac and cheese and tad-too-bland baked chicken). But I got the same answer from each of them: There is no recipe. They simply used a little bit of this and a little bit of that and cooked it until it was done. These reveals were often followed by joyous remembrances of picnics and Sunday dinners and family reunions, and every now and then I'd get a clue: Barbara had that cast-iron skillet. Your grandmother used Crisco. The paper bag? They say it's to better coat the chicken, but we only used it 'cause Momma used it. Garlic powder. Paprika. And don't forget the oil has gotta be hot!

This is how I began putting the pieces of my puzzle back together again. I'd go to the butcher down the block and buy six wings and two breasts one day, four thighs and five legs another. Try to remember my mother in the kitchen-her fingers covered in flour, her jubilant singing filling the room, her seasoned spirit. Imagine and reimagine the ingredients in her brown paper bag. See her placing the chicken in her pan, allowing each piece room to breathe. And every time I cooked, I felt a little bit closer to her, perched on a branch of her life.

Frying chicken right can feel like riding a bike backward. Or writing a sonnet. It's hard, sometimes elusive. But there is a form to guide you, and with practice you can find the flow. For me it took a dozen tries, and yet the ecstatic look on my kid's face when she bit into that twelfth and final chicken wing was worth the wait. She got what she'd asked for. So did I. Through cooking I'd reunited with my mother, forged a powerful kinship. It was life-giving.

This one beautiful life is a series of puzzles. If you're fortunate you get someone to show you how they fit together. If you're really lucky, when they're gone, you learn how to let their memory guide you, hug you, gather you. So that when you get sad and unsure-because this new puzzle seems undoable-at least you have the precious memories to feed you while you put the pieces back together and find your way home.

Get the Recipe:

Kwame Alexander is the poet-in-residence at NPR's 'Morning Edition' and cocreator of a Disney+ series based on his Newbery Medal-winning novel, 'The Crossover.'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
My Mother's Fried Chicken Was a Link to My Past-and My Daughter's Future

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Frying chicken right is like riding a bike backward. Or writing a sonnet. It's hard, sometimes elusive-but in the face of loss, it can also be life-giving. This is All on the Table , a column featuring writers we love sharing stories of food, conflict, and community.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Each week, the StoryCorps podcast shares these unscripted conversations, revealing the wisdom, courage, and poetry in the words of people you might not notice walking down the street. Subscribe to Our Podcast

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
HOME - Micro Documentary by Olivia Foa'i

# data[].attributes.headline
Scholastic Art & Writing Personal Essay/Memoir Awards

# data[].attributes.subject
Scholastic Art & Writing Personal Essay/Memoir Awards

# data[].attributes.body
How meta...

# data[].attributes.body
Video, Voice Over, Captions, Music

# data[].attributes.body
Video, Music, Narrative

# data[].attributes.body
interviews, video, music, narration,

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Edelina Bagaporo

Camila Salinas

COMING OF AGE

What has it been like to be a teenager during the first year of a historic pandemic?

The New York Times, through its Learning Network, asked the question, and more than 5,500 responses poured in.

In words and images, audio and video, they reported that it was, in many ways, a generation-defining disaster. Being trapped inside - and missing the milestones that ordinarily mark coming of age in America - was lonely, disorienting, depressing and even suffocating.

But many also surprised themselves. They bonded with siblings, discovered nature, found small comforts in Zoom-school, played games, worked out, cooked, wrote, sang, danced, painted and made videos. And, perhaps most important at a time of life focused on figuring out who you are, they reinvented themselves.

But although so many coped admirably, this generation will be forever changed. As one 16-year-old put it, "Making history is way overrated."

This week, a year after the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a pandemic, we share their stories. In this special project, we chose a handful of entries to show what teenagers have lost - and what they have found. Below each image, you can find edited and condensed excerpts from their artists' statements that can tell you more about the work.

No matter how old you are, as you read you might ask yourself a question, too: How has this year challenged and changed your generation?

- Katherine Schulten, editor, The Learning Network
"For some, it was a time of reflection. For many, it was a dark period of isolation. For a generation, it was a defining collective experience." - Parrish André, 18
Whippany, N.J.

Image

For Paloma Ezzet in San Diego, "Common high school things, such as spending time with your friends and going to football games and dances, are near impossible to do." Credit... Paloma Ezzet

"The Black Lives Matter movement has encouraged me and an entire generation of young people to speak up." - Christian Lee, 17
Chula Vista, Calif.

This photo encompasses my own identity as an L.G.B.T.Q.+ Filipina-American woman. It highlights my role as an ally to the movements of social justice. No longer do I talk about boys or paint my nails, but start to recognize the part I can play in fighting for justice and how to tackle my implicit biases.

Although this was not the summer I was expecting, it truly has brought on tremendous personal growth, which I would not trade for anything.

La Habra, Calif.

I took this picture with my phone in my home in Humboldt County while wildfires raged nearby early in September. The air was toxic so you had to wear a mask when you went outside.

"I was forced to be alone with myself, which led me to create art and poetry with deeper meaning than I had ever been able to create before." - Hannah Blue, 17
San Antonio

Teenagers wanted to have the best summer ever, and it was canceled in March.

A few days before this picture was taken, my friend texted me wanting to hang out but also be six feet apart.

My friends and I all decided on a day to drive to a parking lot. We just sat in a circle and talked for about four hours. It was one of the best nights of my quarantine.

All summer, my Instagram feed was filled with people throwing their own proms and finding fun ways to make this summer the best despite the pandemic. Finding a way to be happy in hard times is essential to making it through.

New York

How can anyone make a statement on beauty standards that has not been said a thousand times before? We all know that it should not matter what everyone else thinks. We all know that we should love ourselves. We also know that no matter how true these statements are, we don't listen to them. This is especially true for teenagers who spend every night scrolling through our social media feeds until we fall asleep.

When New York gave the orders to stay at home, I was in the midst of multiple eating disorders that had started the previous year. The idea of quarantine terrified me. I would have to try even harder to hide my worsening health from my family. I didn't want to get better.

As the days in quarantine blurred into weeks, all I was left with were my thoughts. I finally realized: "This is not what I want. I do not want this to become me." I began to confront my feelings, put effort into counseling and find ways to express myself. The artwork that I created helped me to fully recover.

Each collage highlights a particular part of my body that made me feel insecure. I previously looked at myself as though in a clown mirror. My artwork transformed my self-doubt into beauty.

Dallas

When we first went into lockdown, it felt like an extension of spring break. We laughed about the toilet paper shortage of 2020. We believed Covid-19 would disappear soon.

I remember the first couple of weeks thinking this was my chance to become stronger during quarantine and get a glow-up. I did YouTube workouts and workouts our coaches posted; I did much self-care and focused on myself. But as time went on, online school started and the climbing season got canceled. I lost motivation and started falling into an unhealthy hole. My sleep schedule was nonexistent, and I rarely got off my bed, even for classes. I completely lost any desire to continue working out or do any self-care. I also stopped contacting my friends, which left me feeling so alone and weak. I felt like I was in this by myself, and no one could help me.

This signifies me finding my rhythm and becoming happier and finding a way to climb out of the hole and overcome my downward spiral.
To learn more about teaching with this collection, visit The Learning Network.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Teens on a Year That Changed Everything (Published 2021)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Edelina Bagaporo Camila Salinas COMING OF AGE What has it been like to be a teenager during the first year of a historic pandemic? The New York Times, through its Learning Network, asked the question, and more than 5,500 responses poured in.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
612527

Featured

Pre-order: EXCUSE ME AS I KISS THE SKY

Get Rudy Francisco's NEW book Excuse Me As I Kiss The Sky

Signed copies available!

Releases November 7.

Featured

Pre-order: EXCUSE ME AS I KISS THE SKY

Get Rudy Francisco's NEW book Excuse Me As I Kiss The Sky

Signed copies available!

Releases November 7.

612291

Featured

Pre-order: HATED FOR THE GODS

Get Sean Patrick Mulroy's NEW book HATED FOR THE GODS

Signed copies available!

Releases October 24.

612043

Featured

OUT NOW: Poetry, Protest, and Possibility Zine Bundle

Pick up this pack of 7 zines by Kyle "Guante" Tran Myhre

Featuring seven zines (pronounced "zeens;" think of them as "little magazines") on topics ranging from poetry, to abolition, to consent, to K-pop group BTS, to healthy masculinity, to getting involved in activism for the first time (plus a sticker and a signed note from Kyle), this bundle speaks directly to the power that everyday people have to work together to actively shape the world.

612140

610165

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Books, videos and more from the best and brightest poets of today.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Living Poets Digital Library Melissa Alter Smith @MelAlterSmith #TeachLivingPoets Scott Bayer @LyricalSwordz #THEBOOKCHAT

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Kevin Durant in tears: Mom is the 'real MVP'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Note: Our Fourth Annual Student Podcast Contest is open from April 8 to May 18.
Listening to podcasts is easy. Creating your own ... now that's a bit more challenging.

To support students who are interested in creating their own original podcasts, whether for our annual podcast contest or just for fun, we asked podcasters to share advice on researching, scripting, recording and editing.

In the three short videos below, you'll learn more about creating "pillow forts" to enhance audio quality and conducting pre-interviews to find the best guests. For each video, we provide reflection questions to help students unpack the advice and apply it to their own podcasting projects.

What do you think makes a great podcast? What do you like about your favorite podcasts?

Pick one of your favorite podcasts. What is the central idea or message the show is trying to communicate? If you were to create a podcast, what is the main point you would want to communicate to listeners?

Consider the role the hosts of your favorite podcasts play. What qualities do you notice about how they use their voice and words to advance the podcast?

Phoebe Lett, an Opinion Audio producer at The Times, told us that while podcast taste is highly personal, there are a few elements that can make a great podcast across all formats and genres.

Some questions to consider after watching the video:

What do you need to know about your topic before creating a podcast? What research steps could you take to become better informed about the subject? What guests could help you round out the conversation?

What is your unique speaking voice, and how can you write for it? How is your perspective about an issue specific to who you are - your identity and life experiences?

What strategies can you use to make reading from a script sound natural? How might you implement one of these tricks in your own scripting and recording process?

Alison Bruzek, a senior producer for Opinion Audio who works on " The Argument " podcast, broke down podcast preparation into a few components: finding guests, conducting research and writing a script.

Some questions to consider after watching the video:

What recording equipment would you use to record a podcast? What apps or programs might you use?

Picture the environment where you would be recording. How could you create a space conducive to recording clear audio? What could your "pillow fort" look like?

How would you go about editing your podcast? What tools would you use? How could you use sound effects and music to add texture to your story?

Daniel Wang, a winner of the 2020 podcast contest, told us that recording and editing a podcast is a lot less daunting than it seems. He gave us a step-by-step explanation of the recording process, complete with suggestions of free software to use on a variety of devices.

Some questions to consider after watching the video:

If you want to learn more about podcasting, we encourage you to delve deeper into podcast creation through our mentor text, lesson plan and podcast writing unit.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Want to Create Your Own Podcast? Here's Advice on How to Get Started.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Note: Our Fourth Annual Student Podcast Contest is open from April 8 to May 18. Listening to podcasts is easy. Creating your own ... now that's a bit more challenging. To support students who are interested in creating their own original podcasts, whether for our annual podcast contest or just for fun, we asked podcasters to share advice on researching, scripting, recording and editing.

# data[].attributes.body
Letter/Poem(epistolary poem), sketches, music

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Dear Basketball | Oscar winning short film by Kobe Bryant

# data[].attributes.headline
It's Not 2 Late (Recorded and filmed at Kings County Juvenile Detention Center)

# data[].attributes.subject
It's Not 2 Late (Recorded and filmed at Kings County Juvenile Detention Center)

# data[].attributes.body
Essay, Music, Video, Interviews,

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
It's Not 2 Late - Recorded and Filmed at Kings County Juvenile Detention Center

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
I was one of the first Syrian refugees to land in Canada in 2014. The settlement process was confusing, prolonged and alienating. How Canada finally became home.

# data[].attributes.headline
Multi Genre Writing Projects--Angela Faulhaber

# data[].attributes.subject
Multi Genre Writing Projects--Angela Faulhaber

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
| April 10, 2023 Slim chance the surgeon gives, but like a tiny bird, I look for crumbs. Nurses flit in, check the PICC line, IV tubing. My mother’s a sleeping marionette, strings at rest.

# data[].attributes.body
photos, captions, narrative essay

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
(AKA other moments of courage-big and small)

Finishing the roadtrip on my own: Across Spain, I faced some of the most terrifyingly tight streets of my life. I got lost. I attempted reading highway signs in Basque hieroglyphics. I ate alone in rest stops and restaurants. I arrived to cities where I knew not a soul. I drove my first rental car. And I completed our culinary roadtrip 100% solo-something I never would have had the guts to do a year before. Every time I wanted to give up, I kept going.

Being open about my family: This is the story of why I felt so sad when COVID struck. Why I turned to writing the essay about travel testing me. Why I really struggled with my mother, the person most deserving of a vacation, ending up in bed-not on the beach. Sharing these photos feels like exposing the highs and lows on an even more radically vulnerable level. But I wanted to pay homage to the person that inspires me to be strong every single day-and to always savor every bite.
Tatiana Gallardo is a writer, illustrator, and photographer. She's currently working on a cookbook featuring her mother's Cuban recipes and beyond. You can read her award-winning photo essay about her mother's caregiving commitment here.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
(AKA other moments of courage-big and small) Finishing the roadtrip on my own: Across Spain, I faced some of the most terrifyingly tight streets of my life. I got lost. I attempted reading highway signs in Basque hieroglyphics. I ate alone in rest stops and restaurants.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
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.

# data[].attributes.headline
NY TIMES' Personal Narrative Teen Writers

# data[].attributes.subject
NY TIMES' Personal Narrative Teen Writers

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Annotated by the Author: ‘Speechless’ (Published 2020)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Maria Fernanda Benavides, a winner of our 2019 Personal Narrative Contest, tells us how she hooks readers by dropping them into a scene.

# data[].attributes.body
Video, Reporting, Video Montage, Argument

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The Bravest Thing You Can Do Is Quit | NYT Opinion