MEMOIR BY CYNTHIA RYLANT

When I was living in my grandparents' small white house in Cool Ridge, West Virginia, I loved to comb my grandmother's hair. I was a thin, blondheaded little girl, and I would climb up on the back of the couch where my grandmother was sitting, straddle her shoulders with my skinny six-year-old legs, and I would gently, most carefully, lift a lock of her soft gray hair and make my little pink comb slide through it. This always quieted us both, slowed down our heartbeats, and we would sigh together and then I would lift up another lock.

We talked of many things as I combed her fine hair. Our talk was quiet, and it had to do with those things we both knew about: cats, baking-powder biscuits, Sunday school class. Mrs. Epperly's big bull. Cherry picking. The striped red dress Aunt Violet sent me. ...

Question 1:
Jamie and Ted both get paid an equal hourly wage of $9 per hour. This week, Ted made an additional $27 dollars in overtime. Write an expression that represents the weekly wages of both if J = the number of hours that Jamie worked this week and T= the number of hours Ted worked this week? What is another way to write the expression?

Question 2:
All varieties of a certain brand of cookies are $3.50. A person buys peanut butter cookies and chocolate chip cookies. Write an expression that represents the total cost, T, of the cookies if p represents the number of peanut butter cookies and c represents...

June 30th, 1787

A compromise was reached yesterday (June 29th, 1787) in Philadelphia combining the New Jersey Plan and the Virginia Plan. This has been a major conflict for quite a while. The New Jersey Plan was debated for four days, but the larger states rejected it. The Virginia Plan was debated for two weeks.

Many believe that the compromise that has been reached is a major progression towards the unification of the States under a Federal System and has solved the problem of state representation. When it appeared that the Constitutional Convention would break up the delegates began to make compromises on important issues. The first thing that they resolved was the problem of State Representation. The smaller states were...

The Phases of the Moon

The Moon does not produce any light of its own—it only reflects light from the Sun. As the Moon moves around the Earth, we see different parts of the near side of the Moon illuminated by the Sun. This causes the changes in the shape of the Moon that we notice on a regular basis, called the phases of the Moon. As the Moon revolves around Earth, the illuminated portion of the near side of the Moon will change from fully lit to completely dark and back again.

A full moon is the lunar phase seen when the whole of the Moon's lit side is facing Earth. This phase...