Community Literacy

One of my goals as an educator is to help promote literacy in my community. Our local library has a wide array of children's audiobooks available to check out with the accompanying picture book. This allows parents to make sure their kids are being read to even if they aren't able to do it themselves. My school's National English Honors Society requires that members buy a children's book and record themselves reading it to donate to the library. As a student at the same school, I loved this project. I used it as an opportunity to learn Audacity, a free audio-editing software, and make an audiobook complete with sound effects and "Clair de lune" playing in the background. For the project, I chose to read one of my favorite picture books--Stellaluna.

As an adult, I love this project for promoting community literacy. Not only does it give parents of young children a reading resource, but it also alerts high school students to the importance of reading to children and enriching their community. Furthermore, it gives students an opportunity to practice their reading fluency, which is a skill usually abandoned once they leave middle school.

I would love to expand this project to chapter books and short stories for middle grade readers eventually, perhaps as a long-term project for National English Honors Society members and sponsors.

Comments

Darius the Great Is Not Okay

Darius the Great Is Not Okay by Adib Khorram would be an excellent book to recommend to any student who feels like an outsider, but especially to students of of immigrants or bicultural students. Darius describes himself as a "Fractional Persian" since his mother is Persian and his father his American by birth. He's a nerd and wants the reader to know it, constantly referencing Star Trek and Lord of the Rings. Khorram does an excellent job developing the strained relationship between Darius and his father Stephen, as the as the intimate friendship Darius forms with Sohrab in Iran. However, I think the novel is most remarkable for its treatment of clinical depression. Darius is depressed, and the novel gracefully shows how depression affects Darius everyday life. We see the mundane ritual of taking his medication (though he does describe the many months it took to find the right medicine), but we also see the more sinister ways depression affects Darius. For example,...

Myshakespeare.com

Since I’m new to teaching English (and teaching in general), I sometimes feel out of touch with technology innovations in the classroom, especially regarding literacy. As a result, I can default to teaching lessons the same way I learned them in high school. So naturally when it was time for my sophomore to read Julius Caesar, I asked them to get out their textbooks. However, before we even assigned parts, one of my students asked if they could read on myshakespeare.com instead. After checking out the site, I happily agreed. Myshakespeare.com has annotated versions of several of the Bard’s plays, including Julius Caesar. They also include great translations into 21st century English alongside the original text, which has been especially helpful for students when they’re absent so they can keep up with the text. Each play also has videos that provide historical context or performances of key scenes. I found the video on the Lupercal festival especially helpful. I’m thankful my student...

Persepolis and Literature in Translation

More than an "English person," I have always been a language person. I love how we use words and how language evolves over time, and for most of my life, my primary way of indulging in this love has been through reading. I went to college for French and Arabic just to experience even more language. Because of my experiences reading works in other languages, I am a huge believer in reading works in translation. Using translated works in the classroom allows students to learn about diverse viewpoints and broaden their concepts of literary canon. Translated works can also provide perspectives completely absent from English sources. For instance, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi provides a first-person account of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Most of my students only know about Iran from recent news stories, so this graphic novel gives them historical context for current events and US-Iran relations. I encourage all self-professed lovers of literature to expand their ho...

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