I’ve seen a lot of teachers on Twitter, or X, or whatever we’re supposed to call it, wondering what we are going to do now that Twitter’s demise seems inevitable. Twitter has been a wonderful place for educators to gather over the years. I’ve made so many friends through Twitter. I’ve also learned so much from teachers willing to share their expertise on Twitter. Believe me, no one is sadder than I am at the state of things. I don’t know the actual statistics, but I know I’m leeching followers weekly, and most have deactivated their accounts (or potentially been suspended). It feels like a different place. Remember the halcyon days of #EngChat?
I’ve been blogging at this site longer than Twitter has existed. I started this blog in June 2005. In a couple of years, it will be 20 years old. It’s difficult to fathom. When Twitter took off, education blogging almost disappeared. I wonder—could education blogging help us recapture what we have lost?
Twitter threads became a popular way for people to share thoughts that a tweet can’t capture, but aren’t threads just blogs broken down over a series of tweets? So why not return to blogs? If we can get a good RSS reader (Google Reader’s demise seriously impacted blogging), we could follow all our educator friends again. Blogging allows for conversation.
I remember starting a book club with Lisa Huff (no relation) when Penny Kittle’s book Write Beside Them came out. I remember starting the UbD Educators Wiki (and later receiving Grant Wiggins’s blessing). I remember the conversations we had about education issues. Twitter was never really a good substitute for the Edublogosphere, but it was where everybody went. Part of me wishes we could recapture what we lost.
It’s probably just wishful thinking, but then again, I think the popularity of Substack demonstrates that blogging is not quite dead yet.
One of the things I dislike about teaching AP English Literature is that I really need to offer students opportunities to practice for the exam, which means timed writing and multiple choice practice. I don’t think timed writing is pedagogically sound because we are not replicating the kind of writing students will have to do most often in college and career. Sure, students have deadlines, but it will be uncommon for them to have to produce something like a timed essay in the real world. I also tend to ask more open-ended questions rather than multiple-choice questions. I have moved away from giving tests and even quizzes as learning assessments. But I also don’t want to shortchange my students who plan to take the exam.
I don’t like giving students prompts that are disconnected from our studies. If, for example, we are engaged in a unit on Home and Family and are reading Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi, I would prefer to have students practice timed writing or multiple choice connected to that text or at least to the themes we are exploring in the unit. Unfortunately, the College Board seems to think the best way to organize the class is by genre rather than by theme. Finding timed writing prompts is not too hard, but finding multiple-choice practice based on the texts I teach can be a challenge.
This week, I decided to try ChatGPT to write some multiple-choice questions just to see what would happen. This is the prompt I put into ChatGPT:
Create five multiple choice questions with options A through E about Layli Long Soldier’s poem “Whereas”
Here is a link to the poem. I really didn’t think it would generate much of anything because Layli Long Soldier’s work is not as well known as, say, Robert Frost’s or Emily Dickinson’s. However, in about 15 seconds, ChatGPT generated the following questions:
In Layli Long Soldier’s poem “Whereas,” what is the significance of the title?
A. It refers to a particular location where an event takes place.
B. It’s a reference to a legal term used in U.S. government documents.
C. It’s a metaphor for a state of mind or emotion.
D. It’s a nod to the Native American oral storytelling tradition.
E. It’s a reference to a specific historical document.
What is the central theme of Layli Long Soldier’s poem “Whereas”?
A. The importance of personal identity in the face of cultural erasure.
B. The complexity and contradictions of language and communication.
C. The impact of historical trauma on present-day Indigenous people.
D. The beauty and power of nature as a source of healing and renewal.
E. The struggle for justice and equality in contemporary America
Which of the following literary devices does Layli Long Soldier use in “Whereas” to convey her message?
A. Imagery and metaphor
B. Rhyme and alliteration
C. Foreshadowing and irony
D. Flashback and symbolism
E. Simile and hyperbole
How does Layli Long Soldier use repetition in “Whereas”?
A. To emphasize the importance of certain ideas or concepts.
B. To create a sense of rhythm and musicality in the poem.
C. To convey the speaker’s frustration and anger.
D. To establish a connection with the reader.
E. To evoke a particular mood or emotion.
Which of the following best describes the tone of Layli Long Soldier’s “Whereas”?
A. Angry and accusatory
B. Reflective and contemplative
C. Humorous and satirical
D. Hopeful and optimistic
E. Sarcastic and ironic
Now, the first question is tricky, but it’s the kind of question with a good distractor. Two answers are pretty good, but one is best. The other four are a bit more straightforward. I think they’re pretty good questions. If I had tried to write them, it would have taken over an hour, I’m sure. I am quite sure I wouldn’t have been able to find questions like this online or in any AP prep books.
I told my students where they came from, and one student who had missed a couple commented, “THAT’S why they suck.” Kidding aside, the students generally agreed they were AP-style questions. They also reflected that when I had asked them to write multiple choice questions as a thinking activity in class, it had taken them a good chunk of our 70-minute period to write just one good question.
I tried again with Layli Long Soldier’s poem “Obligations 2,” and ChatGPT didn’t do as well. I believe the AI confused the poem with another text based on the questions it generated, but I’m not sure which one. Still, I think this is a game-changer for including more quick multiple-choice practice questions on the texts I actually teach.
I decided to try again to see what would happen if I asked ChatGPT to create some discussion questions. Here is the prompt I used:
make up discussion questions based on Zitkála-Šá’s poem “The Red Man’s America”
It generated the following:
What message is Zitkála-Šá conveying in “The Red Man’s America,” and how does she use language and imagery to convey that message?
How does Zitkála-Šá’s personal experience as a Native American influence her perspective on the United States and its treatment of indigenous peoples?
In what ways does “The Red Man’s America” challenge traditional American narratives of manifest destiny and the conquest of the West?
How does Zitkála-Šá’s poem reflect the broader struggle of Native Americans to maintain their cultural identity and resist assimilation into mainstream American society?
What role does nature play in “The Red Man’s America,” and how does Zitkála-Šá use descriptions of the natural world to convey her ideas about the relationship between Native Americans and the land?
How does “The Red Man’s America” compare to other works of Native American literature in terms of its themes and style?
In what ways does Zitkála-Šá’s poem challenge stereotypes and misconceptions about Native Americans that are still prevalent in American culture today?
How does Zitkála-Šá’s poem speak to contemporary debates about issues such as land rights, cultural appropriation, and representation of indigenous peoples in popular culture?
What does Zitkála-Šá’s poem suggest about the potential for Native American cultures to survive and thrive in the face of colonization and assimilation?
How does “The Red Man’s America” speak to broader themes of identity, belonging, and resistance in American literature and culture?
I don’t love all of these questions, but I admit most of them are pretty good, and I would use them in a class discussion. I really thought, again, that I might stump the AI with a lesser-known writer, but I didn’t.
Next, I asked ChatGPT to write me a lesson plan based on three Emily Dickinson poems I want to teach. The lesson plan was okay. It wasn’t great, but it was not terrible, either. I decided I wouldn’t use any of it because I had some other ideas about how I wanted to approach teaching Dickinson’s poems.
I think ChatGPT has the potential to save some time for tasks, but it’s not yet as creative as a human. Still, given how much time teachers spend doing some of these tasks, I think it could be a very interesting tool.
I received my course survey results, and the feedback has me thinking, as it should, about what I need to improve and what is working well. I have consistently received good feedback from students on connections between my class and other classes and connections to the world outside the classroom. I prioritize these types of connections in my approach to teaching. I consider it a high compliment when students express the opinion that something we did felt relevant.
I’m convinced that one reason students see these connections is that I approach teaching literature thematically. While teaching survey courses chronologically is common, particularly with American or British literature, there is no reason a survey course has to be a chronological march through the literature. My personal feeling is that chronological approaches ensure that students don’t study the most engaging and relevant literature until late in the course.
I never liked teaching genre-based courses either. In these courses, a teacher might teach a poetry unit, then a short story unit, then maybe a drama unit, and so on. The CED for AP Literature is organized as a genre-based study, which is something I don’t like about it. I feel that genre-based organization leads students to see genres as separate from each other and doesn’t foster connection.
One of the greatest influences on my teaching has been backward design. Maybe some of you were reading this blog when I read Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe’s Understanding by Design and blogged about my response to it.
Reading that book set me on the path toward teaching literature thematically, and I would never go back to another approach. I think approaching literature thematically helps students see relevance in the literature. Students have a sense of our shared humanity. In other words, we can learn valuable things about ourselves from literature.
I owe a debt to Carol Jago, Renee H. Shea, Lawrence Scanlon, and Robin Dissin Aufses. Their text Literature & Composition for teaching AP Lit has been influential in the thematic approach I take to teaching that course. Even though I don’t use the text and do not use most of the works suggested in their thematic units, I found their themes compelling, and borrowed several of them for my approach to teaching my AP Lit course:
Identity and Culture
Love and Relationships
Home and Family
Conformity and Rebellion
Tradition and Progress
Art and the Artist
I admit I don’t always get to all of these units, so I prioritize them. I teach Song of Solomon in Identity and Culture, Homegoing in Home and Family, Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours in Conformity and Rebellion, and Never Let Me Goin Tradition and Progress. I’m thinking about doing an Ishiguro literature circle instead next year—students would select either Never Let Me Go, The Remains of the Day, or Klara and the Sun in the Tradition and Progress unit if I make that change.
I include short stories and poems that work thematically with these units. The Love and Relationships unit is entirely poetry and short stories. I’ve done a play in the past and am considering doing The Importance of Being Earnest as a drama—if I do that play, I need to cut back somewhere, which is tricky. I admit I should be including more drama, but I prioritize teaching poetry because my students have read more drama prior to my class and need to read more poetry than they have.
This year, my Love and Relationships unit included the following works:
A revisit of “When Maze & Frankie Beverly Come On in My House” by Clint Smith (students read his collection Counting Descent for summer reading)
“Bright Star” by John Keats and “Love’s Philosophy” by Percy Bysshe Shelley (paired texts with clips from the Jane Campion film Bright Star)
“The Storm” by Kate Chopin
“Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway
Sonnets 116 and 130 by William Shakespeare
The Kiss by Gustav Klimt and “Short Story on a Painting of Gustav Klimt” by Lawrence Ferlinghetti
“The Dead” by James Joyce (with a timed writing practice)
“Brokeback Mountain” by E. Annie Proulx
“The Outing” by James Baldwin
“La Belle Dame Sans Merci” by John Keats (with a multiple choice practice)
A Rudy Francisco deep dive with “If I Was a Love Poet,” “Scars,” and “To the Random Dude Who Started Dating My Ex-Girlfriend…” (all of which can be found inFrancisco’s collection Helium)
The essay “Joyas Voladoras” by Brian Doyle (thank you to Scott Bayer and Joel Garza for inspiring its inclusion)
Turning a critical eye on this list, I can see there are not many women. However, do teach a lot of women writers in other units, and I believe it balances in the end. The students seemed to enjoy this unit. There is a mix of canonical, classic literature and new voices. Many of these works could easily be read in different units if we focused on other thematic elements. “The Dead,” for example, could easily be about Home and Family and Tradition and Progress, but I taught it with a focus on Gabriel and Gretta’s marriage and his feelings of jealousy when he learns of Gretta’s premarital love life. Themes act almost like lenses—they provide a way for us to approach the study of literature to see what it has to teach us about that theme.
Students refer to the unit theme often in our discussions. They see the common threads that unite all the literature we are studying. I believe it contributes to their ability to see connections to other classes and life outside of the classroom, too. I had the wonderful, gratifying experience of seeing one of my students read a poem she had written at an impromptu poetry reading hosted by one of my department colleagues. Before she read, she said the poem was “inspired by AP Lit, the Love and Relationships unit.” My heart sang. She saw the relevance of the theme, but she was also inspired to contribute her own voice. Isn’t that what we want for our students?
One of the ways I try to keep my teaching fresh is to revise units and try new things. I am not one of those teachers who can do the same thing year after year. While I understand the pandemic has been a huge challenge, some of the units I teach didn’t feel successful last year, even on top of pandemic concerns. I discovered the unit makeover challenge through Brave New Teaching. The unit I started with is my Home and Family unit with the novel Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi at the center. I decided to revise that unit because I love that book so much that I actually over-teach it to the point that it’s a slog for the students by the end. If you know the book, it might make sense to explain that they generally stay with me up until the chapters on Akua and Willie, after which, they just can’t do it anymore. I knew I needed to freshen this unit up, and I decided this unit challenge would help. I enjoyed the first step, creating a vision board, so much that I’ve decided to tackle my other units in the same way. Here is an image of my vision board for Homegoing. I created this vision board using a Google Slide. Unfortunately, my school’s Google Drive settings no longer allow me to share outside the organization, so I cannot share the actual Google Slide.
Homegoing vision board
I was not only happy with how it turned out but also was able to zero in on what I think is important in the novel. I have just started the vision board for the unit that includes Mrs. Dalloway and The Hours, and I can already tell that this unit really needs a lot of work. The essential questions I’ve been using don’t work, for one. I’m excited to tackle revising that unit along with my AP Lit teaching colleague.
I created the following vision board for the LGBTQIA+ history and literature unit in the Social Justice course I co-teach.
LGBTQIA+ History and Literature vision board
Again, I found it helped me focus and figure out what was important. The vision board concept has opened up a whole new way for me to think about units. I could also see it being a form of assessment for students following a unit. What if we asked students to create a vision board exploring their learning takeaways from the unit?
I had a great discussion with my students today. A couple of them asked me why I don’t grade participation in Socratic seminars. I used to. I stopped because I find that grading participation is slippery. If you quantify it, you run the risk of encouraging shallow participation for points. In their reflections, students share what they have learned as a result of the seminar. I think part of the concern the students shared is that their reflection must include a summary of ideas discussed in the seminar, and the students who raised the concern did not earn full points for their summaries. They argued that if they are trying to capture the discussion in their notes, they will not be as present in the discussion.
What I told the students is that grading is a means of communicating their learning, and if they would prefer to be assessed on participation because it helps them learn, then I will do what helps them learn. I asked that we have a discussion about it as a class. We had that discussion this morning, and I was really impressed with how the students were able to articulate what works for them in assessing seminars and why. They have a strong sense of what kind of assessment feels equitable and what does not. They were able to articulate why setting goals and assessing progress toward the goals was helpful, and why grading participation didn’t work for most of them.
I pointed out that the skills of note-taking and listening are important for success. Students need to listen to their teachers and peers—now and later in college—and be able to take notes on what they hear, so my rationale for assessing these skills is that they are skills that are important to practice. Yet, I understand their arguments as well. We cannot have a good seminar if students do not participate. On the other hand, their classmates insisted that participation was not a problem in our first seminar. At one point, they asked me to display our discussion map from last time (thanks, Equity Maps!). Did we actually have a problem that needed solving, or was our discussion working without grading participation?
The class consensus was to leave the assessment as is, particularly as they have only experienced one seminar so far and judgment based on one experience would not tell the whole story. I don’t think everyone was happy, and frankly, the discussion did become a bit heated. I don’t think that made the students feel comfortable. I asked them if they felt heard—not agreed with, because that’s not the same thing—but heard. I think the net result is that students appreciated the opportunity to share their ideas. I was super impressed with them, and I shared that feedback with them.
We have our second seminar tomorrow, and it will be interesting to see how this debate informs the discussion. In the end, the compromise/consensus seemed to be that students want to be assessed on making progress on their goals. Part of their reflection is to identify their goals for the next seminar. This means I need to go back into their last reflections and refresh my memory about what their individual goals are and ensure I give them feedback on their progress toward meeting their goals. They also asked for feedback on their contributions, though they recognized that one person’s idea of an insightful comment may differ from another’s.
The bottom line is that it’s important to engage students in the assessment of their learning. Some of the best discussions I have had with my students have centered on grading and assessment. They have a lot to say about assessment, but they are not always a part of the conversation about how they’ll be assessed. It was a good exercise for my students today to hear others’ perspectives on this topic and take those perspectives into consideration.
Last November, what with the pandemic and all, my weight reached a point that made me pretty unhappy. I could usually get a little bit of exercise by walking back and forth from my office to my classroom, but when we moved entirely online, there were days when I hardly moved at all. Truthfully, however, I’ve been fairly sedentary most of my life. I’ve never exercised very much, and I typically gave up when I tried an exercise regime and didn’t see any results. After I had my third child, I developed hypthyroidism, but I didn’t know I had it until a physician ordered routine bloodwork and immediately called me to tell me she had prescribed medication for it. A host of issues I didn’t know were related suddenly improved.
About a year and a half ago, I wondered if I needed a higher dosage of the medication because I couldn’t seem to lose any weight, and I had heard that the medication I was taking was supposed to help with that. However, my thyroid levels were fine, according to my doctor. She suggested I check out Noom, and I was pretty skeptical, but I finally signed up in November 2020. I honestly don’t use many of Noom’s features. The accountability of the coach and the group don’t help me much, but I can see how they might help others. I find logging my meals and water intake extremely helpful, and I also discovered walking because of the app. Noom encourages users to meet a step goal, gradually increasing the number of steps each time you meet your goal. By January, I was up to 10,000 steps a day, which I have maintained so far every day this year. I use another app called Pacer to track my steps because it gives me badges for completing challenges, and that kind of thing is weirdly motivating for me. For the record, I’ve lost about 40 pounds, but more importantly, I’m actually fit for maybe the first time in my life—fitter even than when I weighed less than I do now. I’m happier with my health and body now than I have ever been, even when I was thinner than I am now.
I can usually meet my step goal if I walk for at least an hour every day. I can break it up into shorter chunks of time, but dedicating that hour has become an important part of my self-care routine. When I walk, I listen to audio books, podcasts, music, or whatever is moving me at the moment. I don’t let weather get in my way. If I can’t walk outside, which is my strong preference, I walk on the treadmill at the gym, but I’ve walked in snow and rain on occasion. The cold doesn’t bother me, but the heat does, so if it’s too hot, I tend to go to the gym instead. I find the treadmill extremely boring, but it’s better than not walking at all.
It seems like a really strange thing to have found this outlet so late in life. I remembered my grandmother loved to take short walks, and there was a period in her life when she lost a good deal of weight doing so. I’m not sure if she ever found it meditative the way I do, but when I walk, I just walk. I don’t check emails. I try not to read anything at all off my phone—maybe just an urgent text message. That hour of time is my time to be alone. Sometimes my husband walks with me, too, and we talk about all kinds of things. On a few rare occasions, my son has also asked to go. It’s best when I can go outside. Even though I live in an urban environment that’s not the best for walking, I still enjoy getting outside in that environment. I check out everyone’s flowers. I observe the trees and the sky. I feel the breeze. It makes me feel grounded and alive and perfectly happy.
I had a moment last week, ironically on the treadmill rather than outside, where I was listening to some music I love, and I was struck by how happy I felt to be moving and enjoying living in that moment. That’s what mindfulness is—taking the time to appreciate the present moment entirely rather than thinking about the past or the future. and pulling yourself entirely into the current moment.
In spring 2020, when the pandemic started raging, I collaborated with our other AP Lit teacher to give students an outlet to talk about how they were feeling. We read Robert Burns’s poem “To a Mouse” and discussed the “best laid plans” the pandemic had ruined and how they were coping. Time and again, students mentioned taking walks. Students are wise. I wish I could say they inspired me, but it probably took another six months and change before I started walking myself.
It’s been a hard year and a half living with this virus. I caught it myself in January of this year, and I was so afraid. I think the main reason I managed to get through it relatively easily was the walking. I had become healthier just in time.
Teachers get very busy, and it’s important that we make time for our health. Walking works for me, but you may find something else works for you. In any case, find an activity that works for you to have some meditiative time and take care of yourself. It’s important to find a way to move that brings you joy. Teacher friends: find a way to take care of yourself. This year looks like it might be a challenge, too, and whatever can help ground you and give you some happiness and peace is critical for your wellbeing.
If you haven’t checked out Michael Ian Black’s Obscure podcast (see bottom of the post for subscription links), you really should. Michael models exactly what I try to teach my students to do when they read: he talks back to the text, he looks up information that he doesn’t know, he reads the footnotes or endnotes, and he thinks about how the book connects to other books, life, the universe, and everything else.
My husband and I support Michael’s Obscure podcast on Patreon. As part of the deal, we participate in regular book club discussions about the book with other folks, and I have had a lot of fun in our discussions. The book club group is funny, smart, and engaged. One thing that came up in our most recent book club discussion last night is just why Frankenstein, the book Michael is currently reading on the podcast, is considered a classic. Why do people think it’s good? Michael admits he’s struggling a bit with the book, and some of the rest of us chimed in with our thoughts about it. For example, the framing device of the letter seems confusing and unnecessary. There is a lot of build-up to something big which then happens offstage, where the reader can’t see it; the two examples that came up in discussion were actually creating the Monster and Frankenstein being jailed for suspicion of Clerval’s murder in Scotland. I don’t know why, but I didn’t notice these things when I first read the book, and I didn’t think much about them when I taught the book in the past either.
I told Michael he’s making me wonder why we consider it a good book, too. I mean, I feel a bit sheepish admitting I didn’t think about these things before, but I think that’s one reason why discussing books with others is so great. In this case, it’s making me aware of Mary Shelley’s writing quirks in a way I hadn’t considered before. We had a bit of a lively conversation in the Zoom chat about how sometimes books are required reading when we’re not interested or ready for them (Jane Eyre came up as a summer reading book for high school). I think there are a lot of reasons why we might cling to books in the classroom, but it’s important that we consider whether they are serving the purpose we hope. When I select a text, I think about the following things:
How does it fit with the themes and skills I am teaching?
How do I think students will engage with it?
What sorts of things can students learn from it (writing moves, history, or human nature and character—among other things)?
Frankenstein is widely considered to be the first science fiction novel. In addition, it’s one of the earliest popular novels, written in a time when novels as we conceive of them were, well, new (hence, “novels”). Depending on what you’re teaching, Frankenstein could be a good fit. For example, if the focus is on the development of science fiction.
But I’m increasingly wondering as I listen to the podcast if it’s good. I am also recalling a class I had some years back who were struggling with the novel when I taught it, and it occurs to me that maybe they were not really into it, and I wasn’t engaging them in a way that worked. As Michael points out things that bother him in the book, I can’t help but feel he has a valid point.
I might argue what’s really happening in the book is more of a philosophical argument: what does the creator owe their creation? Perhaps the plot itself is not why we might teach the book. Maybe not character development either. But I could see a case for the novel’s philosophical questions being a good rationale for teaching it.
That doesn’t really answer the question about whether or not it’s good.
You might want to check out Dr. Kat’s video about Mary Shelley and the creation of Frankenstein. She makes some really valid points about the novel’s philosophy.
Sixteen years ago today, I started this blog. My hope was that I could share my thinking about educational issues and perhaps share some of the curricular and teaching resources I created. I haven’t done much writing about either of these topics in some time, but I long ago decided that rather than feel pressured to blog consistently that I would blog when I was moved to blog.
I have some recent good news to share with anyone who might not follow me on social media. I’m now Dr. Huff.
Me and my dissertation committee
I successfully defended my dissertation on June 1. My topic is assessment, which will probably surprise no one who has been following this blog for a long time. In fact, I concluded my dissertation with reflections on how much my exchange with a student changed my thinking about assessment and grading.
I’m excited to see what is next for both me and this blog. Thanks to those of you who have stuck around over the years.
I need to do some work on my dissertation, so I’m hoping a reply here on my blog will limber me up for writing.
Is that possibly a form of procrastination?
Maybe, but here are my recommendations, and you might consider teaching them, or you might just enjoy them on your own.
Essays
One of my all-time favorite essays is Ta-Nehisi Coates‘s seminal work, “The Case for Reparations.” It’s well-researched and persuasive. I particularly appreciate that Coates doesn’t become bogged down by the “how,” which is what stops many people from considering reparations for slavery. Instead, he focuses on “why,” and once the “why” is compelling enough for the majority of Americans, I think we will find the “how.” I also highly recommend Coates’s essays “My President Was Black” and “The First White President.” “The Case for Reparations” and “My President Was Black” were both collected in his book, We Were Eight Years In Power, which I also highly recommend. In this collection, Coates discusses the writing and his process. His critical reflection on his own work is really fascinating.
A more recent essay I read in The Atlantic was “History Will Judge the Complicit” by Anne Applebaum. What I loved about this essay was the historical study of two figures in East Germany, Wolfgang Leonhard, who defected to the United States after growing disenchanted with the East German Communist Party, and Markus Wolf, who remained loyal to the party even after gaining an intimate knowledge of its worst violence. Applebaum compares the two men to Mitt Romney and Lindsey Graham. I found the essay to be a fascinating discussion of party versus principles, and the comparison is a master-class in persuasive writing.
I first read James Baldwin‘s essay “A Talk to Teachers” after seeing Clint Smith mention it in a tweet. Smith mentioned that he returned to it each year while he was teaching. I’m not sure if he still re-reads it each year, but I have now read it twice, and if anything, it becomes more relevant as time passes. It’s hard to believe Baldwin didn’t pen this essay just last week. Baldwin underscores the urgency of social justice and why teachers cannot wait to make critical changes in how they teach their students of color. Baldwin opens his essay:
Let’s begin by saying that we are living through a very dangerous time. Everyone in this room is in one way or another aware of that. We are in a revolutionary situation, no matter how unpopular that word has become in this country. The society in which we live is desperately menaced, not by Khrushchev, but from within. To any citizen of this country who figures himself as responsible—and particularly those of you who deal with the minds and hearts of young people—must be prepared to “go for broke.” Or to put it another way, you must understand that in the attempt to correct so many generations of bad faith and cruelty, when it is operating not only in the classroom but in society, you will meet the most fantastic, the most brutal, and the most determined resistance. There is no point in pretending that this won’t happen.
The essay was originally a speech that Baldwin delivered in 1963!
Poems and Poetry Collections
I have written previously that we’re in the midst of a poetry renaissance right now (subscription to English Journal required). I still believe that is true. This list has the potential to be extremely long, so I’m going to limit it to my current favorites.
Maggie Smith‘s “Good Bones” is a poem I turn to often. These days seem so bleak, and they feel like they only become bleaker. But Smith reminds us that this old planet does have “good bones,” and we can make something beautiful with it.
Jericho Brown invented the form “duplex,” a combination of a ghazal, a sonnet, and the blues. This poem, titled “Duplex,” is one of my favorite examples of the form. I particularly love the line, “A poem is a gesture toward home.” For a birthday gift to myself, I attended a poetry-writing masterclass taught by Brown through the Emily Dickinson Museum’s Poetry Festival programming (it was free, but the gift was giving myself the time to do it). What an amazing teacher! I loved it! His collection The Tradition won the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. I highly recommend it. Also, check out Brown’s pandemic poem, “Say Thank You Say I’m Sorry.“
Speaking of collections, a few of my favorites are Eve L. Ewing‘s 1919, Clint Smith‘s Counting Descent, and Fatimah Asghar‘s If They Come for Us are three of my favorite collections. Ewing’s book focuses on Chicago’s 1919 Race Riot, and she experiments with a variety of forms and ideas, using quotes from a report called The Negro in Chicago: A Study on Race Relations and a Race Riot. I’m telling you, really need to hear Ewing read aloud her poem “Jump / Rope,” which she reads in this interview with Terry Gross.
Clint Smith’s collection has too many favorites to count. Some poems that I particularly enjoy, however, are “Counting Descent,” “Counterfactual,” “When Maze & Frankie Beverly Come on in My House,” “Playground Elegy,” and “Ode to the Only Black Kid in Class.” I also really like Smith’s poem “History Reconsidered.”
His performance of “When They Tell You the Brontosaurus Never Existed” is another favorite.
Some favorites in Fatimah Asghar’s collection include “Microaggression Bingo” and “If They Come for Us.”
Speeches
Some of my favorite speeches in recent years are actually speeches by young people. I found Emma González‘s speech at a press conference following the Parkland Shooting particularly moving.
I also enjoy any time Bryan Stevenson speaks, but this TED Talk is a place to start.
I also really like this older speech by Sir Ken Robinson, whom we lost this year.
And finally, this speech by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is my “why” for teaching English.
My ambition got away from me. I have continued to read Joe Feldman’s Grading for Equity, but I haven’t been posting reflections here. I will, eventually. I just need to finish a project I’m working on before I post here.
In other news, a manuscript I submitted to English Journal was rejected with encouragement to revise, and I just don’t have time to revise right now. I think the peer reviewers’ comments were helpful and would make the writing a stronger piece, but it’s just not going to happen. Instead, I plan to post the article here, perhaps in three or four parts, so that the ideas might be something you can implement in your classroom (if you are so inclined). I had good reviewers, and I appreciate the time they put into the manuscript. I know that’s a lot of work.
I’m a researcher and graduate student, and the power of feedback to make your writing and thinking better cannot be overstated, but sometimes you need to put the rough ideas out there anyway, so that’s what I plan to do.
What is this article about? Here is a little hint.
