Category Archives: Classroom Library

Beyond These Four Walls

Books, Community, Erika Bogdany, Pedagogy, Readers Workshop, Readers Writers Workshop January 28, 2015 Comments: 12

Believe it or not, there is an actual term called ‘seat time’.  Yes – states, the national government, school boards, and the rest of ’em, refer to the amount of time a student needs to be learning as “the time they spend in their seats.”  So, we create spaces where students feel safe, comfortable, and willing to risk as we maneuver around this idea of ‘seat time’ because really, who wants to be in a seat for hours upon hours a day?

We move furniture around and engage in Sky Writing (writing on the windows), we use bright colors to liven the spot up and throw rugs on the floor, we use wind chimes and zen gardens to channel our collective inner peace.  I love all of this.  I do.  Because our classrooms are our homes away from home, we invest in them.  For students, sometimes it’s their only home.

Until now.

This year I’m taking the show on the road.  And by show, I obviously mean the Reading Writing Workshop…because I wouldn’t stay home or head out without it.

I’m not alone in this vein of thought.

Amy has gently drenched us with her new found love for teaching poetry; inclusive of strategies, techniques, and student buy-in that emerged for her this summer at Frost Place.  Shana (and her hubby) have taken us to England where we virtually toured historically majestic places where remarkable literaries once stepped foot.  And, Jackie has provided us the opportunity to be audience members through Poetry Out Loud as we envision the poetic brilliance eminating from our New England youth.

Thank you, ladies.  I’d like to return the favor.

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Welcome to the streets of NYC where students and I take on the challenge of reading throughout the entire day ‘outside of seat time’!

We know, educating our youth is a collective effort – always.  Therefore when my principal afforded our students the opportunity to purchase books of their choosing, he envisioned handing them their individual gift cards and letting them be on their way.  While this is lovely and most definitely appreciated, I needed to be part of the process with our emerging and evolving readers.

This journey needed to be a collective.

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Our ‘seat time’ for the day!

The goal was to ensure that the day was full of all things literature – from the moment we left the building.  So, as students and I bundled up to head out into the winter cold, we locked the door to Room 382 with metrocards in hand, Writer’s Notebooks in tow, and independent reading books tucked into our bags.  While enroute to the four-story Barnes and Noble located in the heart of Union Square, the NYC subway became our independent reading haven.  Students were aghast at first to know that I was serious about reading, not only on the train…but in public.  Yet, once reality set in, one-by-one books started to surface.  Students started to seep into their pieces and some decided to (unconsciously) ignore the fifteen minute benchmark; they found their time on the subway to be soothed by the lull of everyday noises that so typically distract them.  Today is different.

Today we are readers.  Public readers.

On the hunt for literature

On the hunt for literature

As we arrived at our destination, students were given a lay of the land and had the opportunity to go explore.  I learned a lot in that moment, and in the moments to follow.  I learned that while working with students for five months now, I still do not know all of their literary interests…or that some prefer to read graffitti art books because they are fueled by creativity…or that some have been intrigued by forensics since they started the course about a month ago – and so of course – they want to read up on it…or that graphic novels are still at the core of young men’s desire to read.  As students traveled up and down escalators to find what they were looking for I was proud of their willingness to take on an adventure that had the potential to be wildly overwhelming.

***

Weeks later, back in Room 382 and in true RWW form, we took to our Writer’s Notebooks and students were asked to chronicle a vivid moment in their lives.  What you are about to read took my breath away, literally.

A vivid moment comes to life...

A vivid moment comes to life…

Davon decided to chronicle this moment:

The first time I went to Barnes and Noble it shocked me a lot. I didn’t even know what Barnes and Noble was intill I got there with my teacher and classmates.  When we got there and I realized it was a book store, I was shocked.  I started feeling all types of bad feelings running threw my body.  I was nervous and had butterflys in my stomach.  Seeing all the people at different book shelf’s in there made me feel like I didn’t have no business being there.The fact that everyone looked like they knew what they were doing and looking for, made me just want to stay out of everyone way and get out of there.  

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Davon in deep thought

 

Davon’s honesty is brave.  And from the looks of it he managed just fine. Better than fine.  He found a piece that would keep him company over the holiday break, that would fuel his imagination, and that would support him in his literacy quest.  A piece he is calling his own.

Using our ‘seat time’ in the most unconventional ways proves that as educators, we know how to support the needs of our students. Sometimes we borrow strategies and ask for guidance, but innately we know what each new group of students needs.  Sometimes it takes a minute to figure it out or customize differentiated plans to make it work.  However, I propose that instead of always rearranging our seating chart or window decals or placement of colored pens…we need to bust out of the four walls in which we learn everyday and let the RWW guide us through the wonders just outside.

In what ways do you foster student learning through the RWW outside of your classroom walls?

Thinking about my Reading Roots: a Response

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Books, Readers Workshop January 16, 2015 Comments: 3

Sometimes others write my thoughts. Shana did that this week in her post about Reading Resolutions.

Well, not the part about traveling to England and visiting all the awe-inspiring places she mentions. (“Someday,” I tell my self daily.) But the part about losing her way as a reader, and the part about needing to “read my roots.” This is so me.

When we run a readers and writers workshop classroom, we read so we can encourage our students to read. Sure, we can book talk titles that we’ve only heard of — there is a little art to that though. Sure, we can have students book talk to one another — this works well when we’ve modeled talking books enough times. And while most of the YA literature I have read over the past several years has held my attention and given me insights into the minds and hearts of my students, it is still not my roots. (Honestly, I get a little tired of all the teen angst that my students love to read.)

Like Shana, my roots run deep into literature. I love the classics. I mean the real old classics — a little Homer, Greek tragedy, a comedy or two, definitely a book of Will’s plays, maybe some Milton, and more.

I teach none of it. And I’m okay with that.

In AP Language, our focus in non-fiction:  speeches, essays, op-ed pieces, arguments, and I have managed to include literature in our book clubs and poetry into our writing workshops. This works great for the purposes of my course design and my teaching. I just sometimes miss the me kind of reads.

Right now I need to think about me.

Here’s three things I’m doing to focus on the Reader who responded to Shana’s post with a “Yes, yes, yes, a thousand times yes”:

1. Participate in a Book Club.  We’ve only met twice, but we’ve read two interesting texts: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett and Unbroken by Laura Hildebrand, and our next book is Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel. Grown up talk about books we read for pleasure. That’s about my favorite thing.

2. Challenge myself to read author’s I’ve never read: James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut (ok, I read “Harris Bergeron”), J.K. Rowling. I have many more, but these are the first three that came to mind.

3. Attend an event at the Dallas Institute of Humanities. A new colleague filled me in on the offerings here. I had no idea. On-going classes, and then in the summer a Teacher’s Institute to study Tragedy/Comedy and Epic Tradition.

What are you doing to reach your roots?

©Amy Rasmussen, 2011 – 2015

Reading Resolutions

Books, Guest Post, Readers Workshop, Shana Karnes, Twitter January 14, 2015 Comments: 18

For the past few years, all of my reading has been for the purpose of research.  I read pedagogical teaching texts or young adult lit almost exclusively, and when I branched out from that, it was to read complex books that I thought I might use to challenge my students to use for craft examples in class.  I read only as a teacher, and not as a reader.  In 2015, I’m determined not to do that.

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Poet’s Corner

Ten days ago, I was in London, England.  Pretty much every moment of every day since then has been spent either reliving a magical moment there, or frantically trying to catch up with everything I fell behind on here in real life.

Much of that trip of a lifetime was spent flitting around different literary sights in London.  My husband and I had a beer at The Plough, the famed pub of Dickens, Woolf, and Darwin.  We visited Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey and saw graves of and memorials to my heroes Jane Austen, William Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, and more.  We enjoyed a visit to the home of the most famous fictional character in England, Sherlock Holmes.  The Globe Theatre, The British Library, Southbank Book Market…we saw it all.  Awash in the history of English literature, my trip made me desperately want to revisit much of it.  I can’t think of the last time I read a classic for pleasure.  So, I made my first reading resolution for 2015: read my roots.  My degree is in literature, but I’ve missed out on a lot of its classics–probably because they were assigned as boring whole-class novels and I knew about SparkNotes, but I digress.

NYT-list---11---Cropped-761259So, I knew I wanted to read some classics for fun.  But I also wanted to make sure I read lighter, easier things too, for a different kind of escapist fun.  I got curious about bestsellers I’d never bothered exploring…Janet Evanovich. James Patterson. Sue Grafton.  I’ve never read any of their books, but millions of others have. So, that’s another resolution–read my age.  I’m a 27-year-old female lover of mysteries, and I’ve never cracked the spine of an Agatha Christie! So much of my reading life is focused on the 11th graders in my classroom, but I need to read my age, too.  I want to read what everyone is reading and talking about–all of the New York Times bestsellers, not just the Young Adult list.

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Heaven in Outer Banks

My last resolution is to relax and read.  I recently read an article about a woman deciding not to participate in the GoodReads Reading Challenge because she felt like it stressed her out and diminished her intrinsic love of reading.  The comments were overwhelmingly negative and unsympathetic, but I found myself in complete agreement with her!  I was always “behind schedule” on the challenge, always feeling like I couldn’t take the time to read anything massive like The Goldfinch or pondering like The Poisonwood Bible or immersive like Will in the World.  Those books would take me way too long to read, and how was I supposed to find new things to booktalk for my students then?!  Well, I’m done with that.  I want to return to the days of my vacation in North Carolina last summer, where it rained for seven days straight and all I did was read.   It was the perfect beach vacation.

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My selfish to-read list

2015 is my year to stop feeling guilt, obligation, or stress about books.  Yes, reading saves lives, changes the world, and creates empowered, literate citizens, but that’s not why people read.  And that’s not why I try to get kids to become readers.  Reading is an exercise in imagination, in escape, in adventure.  It’s joy and pleasure and heartbreak.  It’s empathy and knowledge and understanding.  I’ve been so busy trying to teach that that I’ve forgotten it myself.  This year, my resolution is to remember that.  What’s yours?

Share your #readingresolutions and see others’ on Twitter.

The Subtle Art of Breathing

Books, Erika Bogdany January 1, 2015 Leave a comment

You know when you’ve been hit…hard. Hit so hard you call up your favorite friend who you know will feel the impact as well and say, “Listen to THIS…”.  Or, when you dance into class so excited to share [with students] you don’t even wait until the bell has ceased ringing to start reading the opening line.  Or, in those wildly personal moments when you quietly take to your Writer’s Notebook and allow your heart to connect to words you never knew how to form yourself.

Welcome to The Subtle Art of Breathing.

There is so much power, resiliency, and breathtaking beauty found within every, single page of this compilation.  The way asha details the real, raw, and rendering experiences she, and those she writes about, leaves me awed.

She annihilates barriers with a writer’s craft that caterwauls to be reread over and over again: never to be forgotten. You cannot help but to highlight and underline and annotate and scribble ideas on post-its while making sure, before you leave the page, you have dog-eared it so you can find your way directly back to where you were hit….stopped in your tracks…changed.

Here’s an excerpt from asha’s brilliant piece titled Resolve :

against our childhoods

with their shifty foundations

and their creaking floors

our childhoods with their cobwebbed

corners and their rattling chains

I was 14 then, I think, maybe 15

You were 16, maybe 17

but that is not the important part

the important part is

you were my first love

It would not be fair of me to give anymore away.  But, you can imagine how asha traverses through time, not in ballet slippers, but with steel-toed boots tiptoeing her way through the most vulnerable moments of human existence: love.

Craft Study–The Glass Castle

Books, Jackie Catcher December 25, 2014 Comments: 4

51iqte2Ed-L    At the beginning of The Glass Castle is a brief four-paragraph acknowledgment, the type of side note readers skip over to get to the story. The last line reads, “I can never adequately thank my husband, John Taylor, who persuaded me it was time to tell my story and then pulled it out of me.” The line is sentimental and sweet, but to me, a teacher, it speaks volumes. The idea of unfurling a sordid past like Jeanette Walls’ elevates this book from a simple autobiography to an outright journey, the same journey our students undergo as they explore their own stories.

In turn, every year, I book talk The Glass Castle, a book that sends my students on a roller coaster of emotion. In my upper level Advanced Composition course, I use the first chapter in “Part II: The Desert” as a mentor text since it begins with a brilliant snapshot in time which both startles and intrigues my students:

“I was on fire.

It’s my earliest memory. I was three years old, and we were living in a trailer park in a southern Arizona town whose name I never knew. I was standing on a chair in front of the stove, wearing a pink dress my grandmother had bought for me. Pink was my favorite color. The dress’s skirt stuck out like a tutu, and I liked to spin around in front of the mirror, thinking I looked like a ballerina. But at that moment, I was wearing the dress to cook hot dogs, watching them swell and bob in the boiling water as the late-morning sunlight filtered in through the trailer’s small kitchenette window” (Walls 9).

 

The opening line is brilliant: “I was on fire.” It quickly ropes in my students as they are caught by the innocent voice of the next few lines: “It’s my earliest memory. I was three years old…” The interjections of childlike wonder make this passage even more haunting as students go on to learn that Jeannette’s beautiful tutu catches on fire and lands her in the emergency room with third-degree burns.

The chapter, which is six pages long, includes a plethora of craft marks that get students thinking about opening sentences, sensory details, one-sentence paragraphs, and the manipulation of time. The chapter can easily be broken down into shorter snapshot segments, which I have students dissect and analyze within smaller groups. These small discussions culminate in a larger whole class discussion that has students drawing out examples from the text to support their readings and interpretation. The best part though is after reading this mentor text most students are hooked. In turn, The Glass Castle becomes one of the most sought after books in my classroom library.

 

A Book About Food?

Books, Erika Bogdany, Readers Workshop December 18, 2014 1 Comment

IMG_20141216_210906You better believe that when Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey collide (behind the big screen) an emulsion of magic erupts.  The One Hundred Foot Journey written by Richard C. Morais turned film was two hours and four minutes of robust richness, immaculate vastness, and intense human connection.  So, no…this book is not solely about food.  Although food, most of the time, tends to be the main character.  I love when authors and film makers do that!

Immediately following my trip to the theatre, was (obviously!) a trip to the bookstore.  Yes, at 9 p.m.  I wasn’t worried about the bookstore not being open but I hadn’t even thought to think that they would be out of the book.  I should have!

An immediate login to Amazon.com and my book was on its way — to be delivered a quick two days later (Thank you, Amazon Prime).  And it wasn’t long into the book when I came across this:

But this you must know:  the violent murder of a mother – when a boy is at that tender age, when he isIMG_20141216_205952 just discovering girls – it is a terrible thing.  Confusingly mixed up with all things feminine, it leaves a charred residue on the soul, like the black marks found at the bottom of a burned pot.  No matter how much you scrub and scrub the pot bottom with steel wool and cleansers, the scars, they remain permanent.

Did anyone else just witness the intense power of Morais’s carefully chosen craft?  Imagery, word
choice, symbolism…shall I continue?  When students ask me what I’m reading or why I’m even reading it; I turn to this page and let them read it for themselves…it’s already tagged.  Most times students’ responses start with a sigh followed by a “Wow” or “Whoa”.  Then the conversation begins.  And, just like what Spielberg and Winfrey have created, our conversations chronicle the richness of this sentiment, immaculate precision and craft of Morais, and the intensity of this reality.

What books have you stumbled upon that have hidden gems in them that you love to share with your students?

An Important Invitation

Books, Erika Bogdany, Readers Workshop December 17, 2014 Comments: 2

 

“WHAT THE [insert expletive]?!”

I do not move.

“NO WAY!  I can’t believe it!  How the [insert expletive #2]?!  Miss Bogdany, come here!”

I’ve been invited.

As I slowly walk toward Christian, both legs extended and perched atop his desk; he need not move. His eyes are bulging.  Is his look one of momentary panic?  Complete disbelief?  A moment of sadness? Regardless, the look on his face is all the body language needed to understand; this young man has just experienced the beauty of literature.  (Although I bet he would beg to differ that ‘beauty’ may not be the appropriate word choice.)

————

This year has been remarkably challenging in ways that I have had yet to experience.

All gritty yet beautiful.

After three and a half months of trying to persuade…breathing (deeply!) through rejected book recommendations…buckling up for the daily roller coaster ride of never really knowing what opinion will be formed about reading that particular day; this invitation could not have come packaged anymore suiting.

While there have been constant shifts, differentiated activities, mentor texts, book talks (on countless genres), writing topics, unsuccessful attempts at captivating student interest…(we all know how long the list gets); one thing has remained constant.  I committed, at the very beginning of the year, that no matter how many changes are made to our learning community, the Reading Writing Workshop goes nowhere!  Student choice has remained constant…and thank goodness it has because the expletives, the lounging student…this is exactly how today’s position on reading needs to be explored; gritty yet beautiful.

 ————

As ChrisIMG_20141215_175627tian holds tight to Tears of a Tiger by Sharon M. Draper (a popular read among students and the first book in the Hazelwood High trilogy), he points to this passage and invisibly underlines each word as he flies through the paragraph that starts “There’s nobody home – ”

He then pauses.   His finger moves to the last line, lingers there as he looks up at me, and continues…”I’m sorry for all I’ve done – so sorry, …so very, very sor-”

“Ms. Bogdany, did you SEE that?!  He kills himself!  He doesn’t even finish his sentence!”

I am most definitely taken aback.  First by Christian’s intense grasp on the craft of the writer and secondly by the wild intensity of a young man taking his own life.  My eyes bulge too.

Then Christian continues.  Again, his finger leading the way…

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“Suicide!  This is the police report.  He killed himself.”

We both pause.  The weight of the word.  We both feel it.

“Ms. Bogdany, I just can’t believe it.  I knew it on the page before, but here it’s confirmed.  I had no idea this would happen.”

————

Christian has chosen many-a-piece that deals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and this piece is no different.  Here you have the main character who deals with survivor’s guilt after accidentally killing his best friend in a car accident.  You can only imagine how difficult life, for Andy Jackson, must be.  While attempting to ask for help throughout the piece, Andy feels as though he is alone.  Very alone.

This piece chronicle’s Andy’s journey and the fatality in which it brings.  Please note that students may want (and actually need) to talk about their feelings regarding this heavy issue.  Christian did, albeit the way in which he initially hinted.  Through the expletives I realized that Christian couldn’t be silent about the tragedy he just witnessed.  He needed to voice (in whatever way that surfaced) his knee-jerk reaction to the shock of Andy’s decision.

This piece has connected Christian and I.  It has given us the opportunity to chronicle his study on PTSD…and the real consequences that are associated with it.  He was able to walk me  through the craft of Sharon M. Draper.  This book will remain important for Christian for very specific reasons as it may very well be the piece that is forever etched in his mind.  This piece will also remain incredibly important for me, but for very different reasons.  Regardless of the reason, we are both grateful to Ms. Draper for her dedication to addressing real issues that touch the lives of our youth.

Craft Study – Brown Girl Dreaming

Books, Shana Karnes December 4, 2014 Comments: 5

20821284Jacqueline Woodson is a native first of Columbus Ohio, then of Greenville, South Carolina, and finally, Brooklyn, New York.  Her nomadic childhood during the tumultuous 1960s and 70s inspired this incredible memoir in verse, which is surely the only autobiography I’ve ever read in poetry.  Layered with tales of tragedy, uprooting, defeat, dreams, and hope, Woodson conjures a nostalgia for her unique upbringing with ease.  She explores themes of family, race, poverty, education, and our life’s callings in this beautiful text.

I can’t wait to share Brown Girl Dreaming with my students. There are so many amazing poems that make up the text as a whole–from the spot-on “stevie and me” (If someone had taken/ that book out of my hand/ said, You’re too old for this/ maybe/ I’d never have believed/ that someone who looked like me/ could be in the pages of the book/ that someone who looked like me/ had a story) to the haunting “what’s left behind” (Sometimes, I don’t know the words for things,/ how to write down the feeling of knowing/ that every dying person leaves something behind.).  But the one we’ll imitate for craft is “what i believe,” which brilliantly combines repetition, deliberate contrast, and an elegant articulation of Woodson’s beliefs.  I hope it will lead my students toward a “This I Believe” essay, and toward wanting to read this book in full.

From Brown Girl Dreaming, p. 317-318

I believe in God and evolution
I believe in the Bible and the Qur’an.
I believe in Christmas and the New World.
I believe that there is good in each of us
no matter who we are or what we believe in.
I believe in the words of my grandfather.
I believe in the city and the South
the past and the present.
I believe in Black people and White people coming together.
I believe in nonviolence and “Power to the People.”
I believe in my little brother’s pale skin and my own dark brown.
I believe in my sister’s brilliance and the too-easy books I love to read.
I believe in my mother on a bus and Black people refusing to ride.
I believe in good friends and good food.
 
I believe in johnny pumps and jump ropes,
Malcolm and Martin, Buckeyes and Birmingham, 
writing and listening, bad words and good words–
I believe in Brooklyn!
 
I believe in one day and someday and this perfect moment called Now.

We Learn Facts from Fiction

Books, Guest Post, Readers Workshop, Shana Karnes December 3, 2014 Comments: 3

NCTE is always so magical, isn’t it?  It’s a five-day frenzy of learning and teaching and connecting and wondering and writing, which should be exhausting.  But it’s not.  Somehow, I come back to school every year with so much energy, revitalized by the conference and its plethora of ideas and inspiration.

This year at NCTE, as the words and wisdom of my teacher heroes washed over me, I was drawn in by one theme that kept recurring–the role of narrative in informational text.  Given that the theme of the conference was “Story as the Landscape of Knowing,” this wasn’t surprising.  What did surprise me, though, was that almost everyone I heard speak discussed how narrative helped learners in the context of nonfiction.  I began to wonder–what about narrative in its most accepted place–fiction?  What information do readers learn from reading fiction?

ptiIn addition to hearing from many teacher-researchers, I also got to hear from many authors.  David Levithan, e. lockhart, Libba Bray, Lester Laminack, Paul Janeczko, Georgia Heard, and more spoke about their writing processes.  Every one of them mentioned research at length, and I jotted a note–“research processes are as multigenre as its products.”  All of those writers had a unique research process, but they were all strong.  These authors put work into making their fiction as fact-based as possible.  Others discussed putting their own lives into their fictional works–Sherman Alexie has too many parallels with the narrator of Part-Time Indian for it to be a coincidence.  What’s more authentic and research-based than a lived experience?

bsogMy brain was whirling.  How many fictional novels have helped me fill gaps in my understanding?  Between Shades of Gray enlightened me to the fact that there was a Baltic genocide.  The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian taught me about culture on a reservation.  Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close brought 9/11 to life for me.  Peak showed me the world of Mt. Everest in a new light.

Fiction transports us to other worlds…it lets us know we’re not alone…and it saves our lives.  But it also teaches us a great many facts.  We don’t ask our students to read in order to just make them better readers.  We ask them to read because we know it will improve their lives…help them attack the “idea poverty” they suffer from, in Kelly Gallagher’s words.  Fiction, especially the YA fiction that is so popular in my classroom, is educational at an informational level.  Readers acquire knowledge of topics they had limited prior knowledge about by reading fiction.  They also gain understandings of universal themes and grand ideas, but they also learn facts.

Forgetting this is a grave oversight, and perhaps is at the root of why YA lit isn’t always considered “serious” literature.  Kelly Gallagher also said that “there is wisdom in Hamlet that is not found in Gone Girl,” and he’s right.  But there’s also factual information in Elizabeth Peters’ Amelia Peabody series about Egypt and archaeology that I did not get out of Antony and Cleopatra.  We do a disservice to authors when we discount their research processes just because they write in a genre called fiction.

All that we learn, and that our students learn, may best be processed in narrative form…but information doesn’t just have to come from nonfiction.  This is an important lesson–it’s why reading needs to be a schoolwide, nationwide, worldwide focus–not just the job of English teachers.  Reading EVERYTHING helps us acquire knowledge, expand our schema, make sense of the world, and become productive, intelligent, informed, democratic citizens.  And it also makes us pretty damn happy.

What fiction are you and your students reading that helps you acquire knowledge?

Talking Choice Reading, NPR Radio

Amy Rasmussen, AP English, Books, Pedagogy November 28, 2014 1 Comment

When Highland Park ISD banned (suspended, officially–then reinstated w/parent permission required) some books during Banned Books Week, my students and I paid attention.  Of course, I pulled the books in question from my shelves — and book talked them right then and there.

The True Story of a Part-time Indian is one of the hottest titles in my classroom library year after year. I know it gets raw in places. I know that it’s the grit that makes kids want to read it. I get that this book is not for everyone.

Few books are.

And that is why choice is so important.

I had the chance to share my thoughts on this in an interview for KERA,  NPR nor the Texas. You can read/hear the news article here.

In a few days I will return to my classroom, fresh from NCTE and ALAN with boxes of new books for my students to read.

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My box of books at ALAN

We talk a lot in my class about books being windows and mirrors. Windows help us see outside ourselves into the lives of others. We grow in empathy. Mirrors help us see ourselves so we know we aren’t alone. We read literature to learn what it means to be human afterall.

It would be hard to learn the truth if we never read the raw and the grit that makes humanity humanity.