This was a crazy week. I watched my students spend 9 class periods in silence over the course of 3 days while taking the state ELA test (and they have 9 more this week for math). Then I listened to them talk non stop about "The Pineapple and the Hare" (that's a link to the google search if you haven't read about it yet), the most controversial reading passage we've seen yet on the state test. My colleagues and I mulled over two of the six questions for our 45 minute weekly meeting, which happened to be later that day. Our thoughts at the end were that literature and multiple choice just don't go together.
The New York Times published this op-ed today by Clare Needell Hollander, a New York City middle school English teacher that encapsulates everything I've been thinking about this week, rooted in her experiences running literary book clubs with her students. It brought my thoughts back to the book club meetings that took place in my classroom this week on Monday and Friday that had been clouded in my mind amidst the state test nonsense. We finally got to talk about Night by Elie Wiesel, and the ways in which my students read this book were incredible, and trying to summarize the conversations I had would rob them of their beauty and depth.
All I know is that if you put solid books in the hands of teenagers, lives and brains and hearts can change and that you should read this article right now.
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