Excel gives the answer 10. If you have a mathematical background, you’ll know why Excel gives a different answer to such a simple calculation — and why, technically, Excel is right. If you don’t have ...

Teacher Susan Ryan once thought her students wrote like robots. Her fifth-graders at Tavares Elementary would spit out essay after essay, using the same five-paragraph structure. They would start with ...

Re “The Lobotomized Weasel School of Writing,” Commentary, May 20: I vehemently disagree with Crispin Sartwell’s characterization of the five-paragraph essay as “hoo-ha.” While he explains that ...