BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS
This page will take you through a few book recommendations, both relating to books I teach and books I love to read. Clicking on each image will take you to a Goodreads synopsis of each work.
Books I Teach
Below you will find some of my favorite works of literature to teach to high school students.
Shakespeare--as we all know--is a classic for high school students. No one makes it through high school without reading at least one of The Bard's famous plays (or, at least they read SparkNotes!). As a student, I loved reading Macbeth; I had the opportunity to read it multiple times, even, as a high-school and college student! As hackneyed as it may sound, I love teaching this tragedy because the themes are timeless.
I always begin this unit with a discussion about famous quotes related to themes of power and ambition, and one favored by students seems to be "Power corrupts absolutely, and absolute power corrupts." Before we even begin an examination of Macbeth and his ever-famous wife, Lady Macbeth, students are able to communicate the perils of power, which makes engaging with Shakespeare's story that much richer.
I love teaching this play to 11th grade British Literature and AP Language & Composition students because of the opportunities it awards me to make the tale come alive. Though we focus on close reading and the characters' descent into madness, we are able to do so with flare, creating character confessionals, re-writing Shakespeare's words, and even working together to stage an abridged version of Macbeth. This play is near and dear to my heart, because it allows me to create space for students to love literature (and hey, who doesn't love a good beheading?).
As a true child of the late '90s and early 2000s, the Harry Potter series will forever hold a special place in my heart. When I started my first teaching job and went to the school to pick up the books I would be teaching and this one landed in my stack, I couldn't believe it. Teaching Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? No way. Too incredible!
I taught this book as a part of the British Literature course for high-school juniors. Often, they would ask "why are we starting with book six?" Well, children, if I was able to teach a class strictly dedicated to Harry Potter, believe me, I would, and you bet we would start with book one! But, that wasn't our lot. This book closed the year, and I always enjoyed it because it rounded out the themes of that course very nicely: power, ambition, and what we choose to do with it. I was able to make strong connections with Macbeth through comparing and contrasting the play's tragic (perhaps, even anti) hero with the antagonist in Harry Potter: Voldemort to discuss and dissect their motivations. We were also able to connect the prophecies from Shakespeare's tragedy to the prophecy that binds Harry and Voldemort together, and watch the film to examine how literature is brought to the silver screen.
What I loved most about teaching this novel is that in its simplicity it was deceivingly complex. The writing style is not difficult, and the plot is easy enough to latch onto, and in that, students were able to dive much deeper into its character and themes. Because of this, students loved reading this book, and begged me to watch the movie so they could at least know how it ended. When, as an educator, I am able to pass on a beloved story to the next generation, I take that as a success.
In college, I read this graphic memoir (The Complete Persepolis) and fell in love with Marjane Satrapi's story of growing up in post-revolution Iran. During a period of curriculum re-design, a colleague and myself thought it was best to include more diverse literature for our 9th grade class--both in representation and literacy type. Of course! Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood fit that bill.
I love teaching this memoir for a few reasons: first, students think they get to read a comic book and boy, are they excited! It's always a win they then thank me for handing them a book! Second, I love the way this memoir forces students to look outside of themselves to better understand what is within themselves. Too often we first judge others who are different than us without pausing to understand that we likely have more in common than we think. When we read this memoir, students begin to understand that like them, a young Iranian girl goes through the challenges of adolescence.
When I teach this story, I tend to focus on having important conversations that help us learn. We divide the book up into four sections and complete a whole-class discussion, centered around important and mostly open-ended questions related to the reader. I act as a facilitator, and each time I am impressed by the maturity and sophistication of my 9th grade students as they talk about the story and how they connect to it. During this unit, students truly push themselves to challenge their perception and grow into more empathetic and understanding people.
Books I Love
Below you will find some of my favorite works of literature that I have read for my own pleasure over the years.
All images obtained from Amazon.com