First book I taught was Fahrenheit 451 (after learning that my initially-planned text, Of Mice and Men, had been banned) and it went so poorly that I cannot think of that book w/o grimacing.
Saw a student at a wedding a decade later and their first remark was how much of a trainwreck it was, lol
How thoughtful!
We had Jan mini-courses and I didn’t know what I was passionate about so I picked something from the book closet. Baaad idea. I landed on No Exit by Sartre. EH shared many years later that it was a valiant effort on my part and he respected it, although unable to appreciate it.
Great story! I use it every year with my freshmen. So much great literature is dark (still great, and still reflective of valuable aspects of the human condition, just sad in one way or another); the vivacity of the narrator character and the turn at the end make this one a healthy exception.
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Saw a student at a wedding a decade later and their first remark was how much of a trainwreck it was, lol
We had Jan mini-courses and I didn’t know what I was passionate about so I picked something from the book closet. Baaad idea. I landed on No Exit by Sartre. EH shared many years later that it was a valiant effort on my part and he respected it, although unable to appreciate it.
As a pre teacher..."The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara.
In my own classroom "Jean Labadie's Big Black Dog" and "Aladdin" from Arabian Nights.
From a very-old blog post from back in the day:
First year: Little Things