One
of the best things about summer for an English teacher is having the time to
read. A perfect summer afternoon for me involves a few hours of uninterrupted
reading on the beach, with the book of my choice in hand. After two years of educational
leadership classes, having the time to read whatever I want has been most
welcome this summer.
When I read a summer book, my
primary concern is not whether or not this will be a good fit for the
classroom. I may find a text that I’d like to teach once in awhile, but that’s
not my priority. I choose summer texts that I’m genuinely curious about,
because that’s what readers do. And then as I’m reading, I think about the ways
in which that text might help me in some way through my work as a teacher.
After all, the whole point of reading
in school is to help us develop our own outlook on the world and ourselves. In
addition, positive school-reading experiences can help students develop into
adult readers. I’m living proof of that, and I read over the summer in the
hopes that I can help inspire my students to be independent agents of personal
growth through their own reading choices.
Earlier this summer, I read two
young-adult books, Everything, Everything
by Nicola Yoon and Thirteen Reasons
Why by Jay Asher. Both have been
runaway bestsellers, and I read them so that I can discuss the books with
students who have also read them. I don’t teach the age group that would read
these texts in school, but I teach students who may wish to connect their own
learning to them in some way. And now I can help them do that, and we can
discuss the text-to-life connections we see in both novels.
I also read James Baldwin’s classic The Fire Next Time, because its
discussion of race was clearly an inspiration for Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me. Many students
are now reading Coates’ award-winning book, which like Baldwin’s is written in
the form of a letter to a loved one and is designed to address race in America
with complete honesty. Baldwin’s book helps me put Coates’ modern classic in
historical and literary context.
I checked out Sherman Alexie’s new
memoir, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,
as well as George Saunders’ novel Lincoln
in the Bardo and Dave Eggers’ novel Your
Fathers, Where Are They? And the Prophets, Do They Live Forever? All three
of these authors dare to write in ways that are radically different from traditional
prose – Alexie by mixing poetry and prose, Saunders and Eggers by relying
heavily on dialogue and dark humor, and Saunders by also mixing in excerpts of
historical texts with his own fiction. I seek out authors who choose to write
differently because so many of my students are doing the same today. For them,
a day’s writing consists of Snapchat captions, Instagram posts, text messages,
emails and traditional homework, both printed out and submitted online. There
is no single path for them today, so why should their reading consist solely of
traditional sentences and paragraphs? In addition, they take on so many
different voices depending on the media they’re using and the audience they’re
speaking to. I see value in helping them discuss the different ways great
writers do this.
I read Paul Kalanithi’s When Breath Becomes Air because a memoir
by a doctor who is dying of cancer just seemed fascinating to me. And why do we
read if not to quench our own thirst for specific knowledge? The same applied
to my reading of Harvey Araton’s Driving
Mr. Yogi, a book about New York Yankees Yogi Berra and Ron Guidry, and the
deep friendship they forged. I like reading and writing about baseball and
life, and this one fit the bill. When I assign independent-reading projects to
my students and encourage them to choose something they want to learn more
about, I can bring up the choices I’ve made to model that process for them.
I have read more during this past
month than I usually do during a summer month, as the list of things to read
had built up a lot over those two years. As the summer progresses, I’ve got
more on my list – two longer novels, All
the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr and Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I anticipate both books will
help me view the direction literature is taking at its most influential level.
I’d also like to read a nonfiction book by my favorite New York Times reporter, Dan Barry, and an autobiography that
addresses baseball and race, written by former player, broadcaster and National
League president Bill White. I find it really helpful to lean my
humanities-oriented mind into the sciences as well, so I’m eyeing the book I Contain Multitudes by Ed Yong. After
that, we’ll see how much time is left and what I can fit into the summer.
When September begins, and I step
back into the classroom, these texts will most assuredly be in my mental
backpack, and will help me find ways to connect with my students and
colleagues. Books help us deepen our understanding of the world and ourselves,
and that’s kind of the point of education as well. So yes, I am an English
teacher. And yes, I read a lot over the summer. As far as I see it, this is
part of the job – and part of a fulfilling life.
