It proved easy to apply the election to Toni Morrison and Jane Austen in my classes.
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Tag Archives: Toni Morrison
Schools Cowed by the Religious Right
Holly Blumner had a vision. A member of the St. Mary’s theater department, Holly wanted to stage Susan Zeder’s Mother Hicks, a adolescent girl’s identity quest, and then take it into area schools. This post is the story about how rightwing groups have so terrified our schools that the vision died.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged adolescence, censorship, Huck Finn, Mark Twain, Mother Hicks, Song of Solomon, Susan Zeder Comments closed
Is Father-Son Conflict Inevitable?
I had an interesting conversation with my two sons yesterday as we drove them and my daughter-in-law to the Portland airport, marking the beginning of the end of our summer vacation. The conversation began with me wondering why there weren’t works of literature that accurately capture the kind of father-son relationship that I feel that […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens, Cormac McCarthy, Daniel Defoe, David Copperfield, fathers and sons, Great Expectations, Hamlet, Henry IV, Homer, Human Stain, Lawrence Sterne, Nicholas Nickleby, Odyssey, Oedipus, Oliver Twist, Philip Roth, Road, Robinson Crusoe, Shakespeare, Song of Solomon, Tristram Shandy Comments closed
What Personal Reading Histories Tell Us
I can’t recommend enough the value of writing your reading history. It will reveal to you sides of yourself you didn’t know you had.
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged Alice Walker, Bernard Waber, Bluest Eye, Blume, Book of Light, Cat in the Hat, Clifton, Color Purple, Dr. Seuss, Freckle Juice, Go Ask Alice, I Know Why the Caged Burn Sings, Ira Sleeps Over, Judy Blume, Lucille Clifton, Maya Angelou, Missing Piece, Norman Holland, reading histories, Shel Silverstein Comments closed
Empowering Conversations about Race
As I look back over this past week of entries, what conclusions can I draw? First, that literature can serve the cause of race relations in this country. The friendship between Huck and Jim spurred my dreams of black-white friendship when I was a child being raised in segregated schools in the south, and it […]
Posted in Uncategorized Also tagged black anger, censorship, Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain, race relations, Song of Solomon, white fantasies Comments closed