My Students

"The pathway to difficult reading begins with books they enjoy. Once they're reading, together we can reach for the challenging literature I want them to know." - Penny Kittle, Book Love: Developing Depth, Stamina, and Passion in Adolescent Readers

My students are the most inspiring bunch of young people I have had the pleasure to mentor and teach.

Many of my scholars have overcome extraordinary obstacles to be in the United States, and many overcome obstacles to sit in my classroom every day. I teach the students you hear about in the news, children who escaped gang violence and cartels in Central America to find hunger and loneliness in the United States. And still, they want to learn. They want to go to college, and they want to do well when they get there.

My Project

I want to give my students an opportunity to engage with a text that is shaped by the curriculum they have already learned. I want to give them a text that, while challenging, is not written in the extra-foreign tongue of Shakespearian and middle English, and -gasp- I want them to enjoy the act of reading. I plan to link concepts like satire, allusion, character archetypes and humor that we read in "Macbeth" to Terry Pratchett's "Wyrd Sisters." The unit will conclude with the students reimagining "Macbeth" in the spirit of Terry Pratchett and using key themes of both texts.

I want my students to find joy in their reading, challenge them to make connections to the classic British texts they have read, and to use their vigorous and fertile imaginations to create their own stories in the style of Pratchett.

My students deserve a chance to flex their reading muscles with a text that is younger than their parents.