Ashton Mallory ENGL 493

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This has always been one of my favorite Poe stories, mostly because of my 10th grade English teacher. On the weekends, he did dramatic readings in the local theatre, and around Halloween, he did a one-man dramatic re-enactment of "The Cask of Amontillado". I took this as my inspiration for how I would teach this. I would give students the text and randomly select 2 students to play Montresor and Fortunato. Then, I would step back, and tell the readers that their job is to narrate and try to have Montresor and Fortunato act out, with the readers giving lines and tones in which lines are said, along with actions. This could have the possibility to bring the text to life for students, and give them a feel for how things actually went in the text. It could give them the ability to understand the irony present through the text, and how the characters interact. It could give students the ability to own their own learning and interact with each other and the text. Students, after u...

What struck me about this book was the way that Junior transitions when he switches back from Reardan and his home. He has a personality in Reardan that is drastically different than his personality on the reservation. Even his name changes (Arnold-Junior). But that isn't uncommon for students in our schools, especially in minority populations. These students often are expected to act "white" in schools. Not that they are literally expected to change their skin color, but students are often expected to act in line with the American ideal of intelligent and engaged students. Some teachers don't acknowledge that students can show what they know without being the picture-perfect ideal of intelligence. Often, cultures are not as forceful as Americans are, instead relying on wait time or thinking time, before formulating an answer. And sometimes they don't answer out of respect. I think the most important thing I can take from this book is that my students don't n...

Published in 2008, My Life as a Traitor by Zarah Ghahramani tells the true life story of a young girl taken captive in her home country of Iran. In 2001, Zarah is a 19 year-old student at Tehran University. Like many students her age, she wants change in the place that she has grown up, becoming disenfranchised with the way she has grown up in society. But, with the tensions rising in Iran from the World Trade Center attacks and “Islamic” terror groups beginning to infiltrate society there, Zarah is caught in the middle. Zarah participated in peaceful protests, and “disobedience” of fundamentalist regime laws (often uncovering her hair a few inches and standing too close to boys). When she is dragged from the streets, and taken to the infamous Evin Prison, known for the worst of tortures in the regime, her worst fears come to life. She is tortured, beaten, psychologically tortured, and isolated. Her only form of communication is scratched messages on a bathroom wall and the stories of...

All the way through Elementary and Middle School, whenever my parents went to parent-teacher conferences, my teachers always said "she is a good student, but she is always reading during class". I LOVED reading. I would finish books in a matter of a day sometimes. But since high school and college, I have been reading less and less. Even when I have the time to read (which isn't very often), I don't want to read because I am so burned out. When I am averaging reading 200 pages a week of generally boring or dry material, I don't even want to pick up the most exciting of novels. I think that our education system, as it has been and sometimes continues to be, doesn't allow for enough choice for students. We give them exactly what to read and how to read it, and we don't give students the ability to think and learn about how these texts apply to their own lives. Or we don't allow students to choose their own reading enough. But it isn't just about ch...

What struck me about this book was how much it actually applied to me as a student. During the fake reading section, I found that I was reading about myself. Often, when I don't have time to read, I will skim a text until I make it work. I don't like to do that, but when I don't have an assignment or something to do with the reading, I find that I am less likely to complete the reading. I also have found that in my school setting. When I ask students to read something and don't give them a lens or reason to do it, the words of the reading often go over their head and they can't actually comprehend it.  Giving students a lens through which to read and how to read a text. Don't just give them a vague reason to read ("there will be a test on it"), say "I want you to read this for the different characters and fill out this sheet so we can talk about it tomorrow!". Give students a reason to read and really look for certain aspects of a text, a...