I am a woman and I study and teach literature. Until relatively recently in my life, this has seemed a pretty normal, womanly thing to do. Not only am I a teacher – a typically female profession – but I… Read more ›
I’m over at We Are Teachers this week, talking about nine women of color in literature that all high school students should be reading: 1. Sethe from Beloved Beloved by Toni Morrison is an unforgettable novel about Sethe, a woman who… Read more ›
Just to be clear, I LOVE Out of Print Clothing. Not only do they have awesome clothes and accessories that are well-made, reasonably priced, and fit well, each of their products features a unique book cover which helps spread the… Read more ›
To the aforementioned students: You are, at this very moment, coming of age. It makes sense, then, why you would identify so much with the Holden Caulfields and Stephen Dedaluses of our literature class. You are mostly males between the… Read more ›
I have of late, but wherefore I know not, lost all my mirth, forgone all with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave… Read more ›
This blog post was originally written for the Teaching Tolerance blog, but, as a mutual decision, we decided not to publish it. They were concerned that I was calling out the AP and College Board without sufficient evidence. My intention… Read more ›
“Oh we’re just happy if they’re reading.” It’s a phrase I hear often as a teacher. We give students books that have interesting covers, aren’t very long, and that grab young readers within the first chapter. If reluctant readers don’t… Read more ›
Oh my god, I love Catcher in the Rye. Seriously. Love it. Every time. I tried to explain to my students the other day why I loved it. They haven’t read it, so they were confused. “Is it about baseball?”… Read more ›
I love love LOVE this article about teaching Macbeth to junior high students that appeared in the New York Times a few weeks ago: Reading Shakespeare sounds like pandemonium. They take 10 minutes just to give out parts, one boy… Read more ›
For the past two years, I have asked my students to go on a quest through literature in my classes. They think of a time in their lives that they felt discriminated against or like an outcast. Then, they explain… Read more ›
Submissions are officially open for the seventh edition of the Feminist Odyssey Blog Carnival! The theme for this month is Women in Literature, and it will be hosted by Our Feminist {Play} School. The deadline is December 20, so get… Read more ›
The Huffington Post ran a piece yesterday about the five books every high school student should read before going to college. It was a pretty good list, and I agree that most of those books are incredibly important for teenagers,… Read more ›
The first show I ever directed was Thornton Wilder’s Our Town. I was living in a small community, much different than the suburban sprawl where I grew up and the urban pulse of the city I frequented, so I found… Read more ›
I fell in love with literature at a very young age. I loved books so much, I wanted to create them, because I wanted to give readers the same joy many authors had given me. Then, I grew up a… Read more ›
We’re reading Anthem and Fahrenheit 451 in my College Prep and Honors classes respectively (all sophomores), and they all read The Hunger Games for their summer reading, and I’m using this infographic to discuss the modern implications of censorship and… Read more ›
Right now, I am in the midst of teaching Anthem by Ayn Rand. It isn’t the most feminist of texts (read: not feminist at all), nor does it deal with issues of race or LGBTQ or anything like that. In… Read more ›