Thoughts on School Reading

As I have mentioned previously, I am an English teacher. I teach English III, which is American literature. This is my second year teaching, but only my first teaching English III. Last year I taught English I. While I enjoyed English I, I think I have found my niche in English III.

When I started last year, I came in late, so I did not get to teach the short story unit with my students. No big loss on my part, as it sounds like the things that were read were stories I wasn't familiar with. I got to teach Homer's Odyssey, which I never bothered to read myself in high school. The Greek gods and goddesses were interesting, but, honestly, I could take or leave Odysseus. Next came Orwell's Animal Farm. Again, not a favorite. The fourth unit was poetry, not my favorite, but we made it through. Once we got to the fifth six weeks, I finally came into my own. We read Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. I was so excited to read that with my students, and their grades reflected that my enthusiasm carried over to them. The last six weeks, we read Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, which I love as well.

So, that first year, I only got to teach two things I truly enjoyed. I knew this year was going to be better; we would be reading The Hunger Games instead of Animal Farm. I was excited for the upcoming year. Then I got the news that I would be changing grade levels.

Don't get me wrong, I love American literature, but I was wary of moving to the English III team. What if we only read boring works? Luckily for me, this has not been the case much this year so far. 

We started out the year reading Native American origin myths. Not exactly my cup of tea, but I've read worse. Plus, I discovered student made videos on YouTube of many of these myths, so I was able to make them fun for the students and me. We moved onto Putiran literature- "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" and some poetry. Not bad, but not my favorite either. Next up though, was The Crucible by Arthur Miller. That play is one of the works that made me want to teach literature, and I was getting to teach it! I embraced the witch thing, and we had a good time reading that play. Plus, we got to watch the movie version, which kept the students interested.

Not everything has been fun.  We just finished reading The Declaration of Independence, Patrick Henry's Speech to the Virginia Convention ("Give me liberty, or give me death!), and Paine's "The American Crisis #1." Not the most exciting reading, but in an election year, it has spawned some interesting conversations.

I am very excited about the works we are starting this week. We planned it perfectly...we are starting Poe. Up first is "The Raven." In order to heighten the creepiness, we will be watching a video of Vincent Price reading Poe's most famous poem....in the dark, no less. How can that not be exciting? Then, we will be reading "The Black Cat." I just read this myself for the first time a couple of weeks ago, and it is a bit morbid. Can't wait to experience it with my students. On Halloween, we will be watching the corresponding section of Tales of Terror starring Vincent Price. Getting to teach Poe is something to be excited about.

We're only nine weeks in, so I can't guarantee that I will be as excited about everything we read, but so far, so good. I have learned that my excitement carries over to my students, so my goal is to make our literature as fun and enjoyable as I can.