Authentic Connections 

When meeting new people — in the pickup line at my daughter’s school, meeting other parents on the playground, introducing myself to my wife’s co-workers — there comes the inevitable, go-to conversation starter: “So, what do you do?” It’s a topic on which most people can connect; it’s likely we all do something, regardless of the industry. Then the follow-up questions ensue: How long have you been a civil rights attorney? How did you decide to be a family physician? Did you always want to start your own business? 

When I tell them I teach middle school English, I also get to answer one of my favorite follow-up questions: “Really? What books do you teach?” 

Everyone loves hearing about Elizabeth Acevedo’s Clap When You Land. Two sisters, Camino, who lives in the Dominican Republic, and Yahaira, who lives in New York City, are both unaware of each other’s existence. Though, when their father dies in a tragic plane crash, they each embark on a journey to discover their sense of place, finding family they never knew they had, and the love and memories that come with it. My 8th graders always say, “this book is totally about ‘the tea.’” And they’re not wrong; it is a pretty juicy book. The kind that, if true, would make a great Netflix documentary. 

However, when thinking back to the question “what books do you teach?”, I often wish they’d ask this instead: “What do you have them write?” 

Class discussions are fantastic opportunities to share ideas, take intellectual risks, and develop a deeper understanding of the text. But writing is when you’re truly able to share your unique, individual reading of the text. You share your insights, push your depth of analysis, and use your specific reading of scenes and exposition to support your views. Writing forces the reader to personally connect with the text, and coming up with creative prompts and assignments for students to do so is an absolute blast. 

So then, what better way to connect with characters than through music? Happy to sad, hip-hop to rock, we all listen to different things to fit our moods. If that’s the case, you have to ask yourself: What would either Camino or Yahaira listen to in the aftermath of this tragedy and learning of a new sibling? That’s precisely what I ask students to do. I ask them to imagine Camino or Yahaira making a Spotify playlist to match their various feelings, and to select three specific songs to analyze in conjunction with the sisters’ feelings. Along with specific song lyrics, they select various points in the text where the sister would either listen to that song, or add it to their playlist. In this assignment, even if they don’t know it, students are making clear connections to the characters — whether it’s text to text or text to life — and rooting their critical thinking and analysis within that connection. The result is authentic engagement with the text, which leads to an authentic voice on the page. 

While I might never explain my writing assignments to strangers, I’m always happy to answer the original “What books do you teach?” question with the honest answer of, “it really depends on the year!” Because it really does. Depending on relevant social issues, students’ interests, overlap with another department’s units and curricular focus, our syllabi are constantly changing. And along with that change comes multitudes of opportunities for genuine engagement in both reading and writing.