Beyond its themes and its place in the canon, To Kill a Mockingbird teaches something rarer: how to truly know another person — by first being willing to love them. A literature teacher’s case for why the novel is still worth reading, and worth teaching, and how to give it the depth it deserves.
Why Teach To Kill a Mockingbird: A Novel About Learning to See Each Other Read Post »
Atticus Finch’s closing argument works as a legal argument, a study in rhetoric, a moral challenge, and a historical document — all at once. Here is how I read it, and what I have found most productive for teaching it.
Steinbeck called it his most ambitious novel. At over 600 pages, with a cast of characters spanning two generations, East of Eden is not an easy text to teach. This guide explains why it belongs in your high school classroom anyway — and how to make it work.
Teaching East of Eden in High School: Are We Free to Choose Who We Become? Read Post »
In East of Eden, Lee speaks broken English by choice, studies Hebrew for fifteen
years, and raises two boys who are not his own. Steinbeck called him a better man
than himself. This article explores why.
Lee in J. Steinbeck’s East of Eden: The Wisdom of the Margins Read Post »
Cathy Ames does not invite easy interpretations. In East of Eden, she stands as one of Steinbeck’s most unsettling creations—resisting explanation while quietly reshaping the novel’s moral landscape. This reflection explores her role as a figure of evil, illusion, and moral tension, offering educators a space to engage with one of literature’s most challenging characters.
When I read The Magician’s Nephew with my students, they almost always notice echoes of the biblical creation story — and they’re right. In this article I follow three of those echoes: the world sung into being, the naming of the creatures, and the choice in the walled garden — with the questions that open each one up in the classroom.
The Magician’s Nephew and the Bible: An Intertextual Comparison Read Post »
