When Students See Themselves in Literature

The discussions are so animated it was hard to find a good photo without blur...

Every day this week, 10th graders have walked into 4th period English eagerly discussing our current class novel even before the bell rings:

• Mrs. Essenburg, I am EXACTY like this character!
• That was so weird! What is happening?
• I listened to “Five Spot After Dark” while I was doing my homework last night. It’s pretty good. [The jazz piece was formative in a character’s life, so I had played it during one of the classes.]
• We’re all going to start turning back to look in the mirror after we walk away, see if we can catch our reflection doing something else! [Referring to a bit of the magical realism element.]

Note to self: Fight the February blahs by planning your most engaging unit that month. I didn’t do it on purpose; it just happened to fit here this year because of the way second semester time got chunked between marking periods, vacations, and special activities. And on top of that, it is just the gift of class dynamics: This is my 4th year teaching this unit, and while students generally find it interesting, I have been blasted out of the water this year by the energy they come into the room exuding. Last year, for instance, though the learning outcomes were good—I’ve always loved the theme of empathy that is the core of this unit—it was a little harder sell getting there. (See blog.) 

Here’s what I do know: after valiantly grappling with a number of works of world literature that broaden their understanding of different times and places (Things Fall Apart; Cry, the Beloved Country; Night), we finally get to relax into one that is about our time and our place: the 21st century Japan of Haruki Murakami’s After Dark. There’s a lot of educational talk about kids needing to see themselves in books. I can vouch for that. 

As students were looking over the novels the first day I handed them out, one student burst out, “You mean he wrote this first in Japanese, and then it was translated into English?” I pulled my Japanese copy off the bookshelf and dropped in on his desk. I told him he was welcome to take it with him, and he answered, “No, thanks. I think I’m going to get it on my phone so I can make sure I can read all the kanji.” The next day, everyone in his table group had read ahead of the assigned reading, and he asked for permission to use his phone to check the Japanese version. He was supporting the group hypothesis about a character’s different responses to different people based on the politeness level of the language—something much more evident in Japanese. Now that student is not only seeing himself in the book—he’s also become an expert with insight that even the teacher doesn’t have access to. (I’ve struggled through the first chapter in Japanese, but it’s really slow going for me.) 

Now students have the special insider knowledge of not only language, but also history and culture. In our past books we’ve learned to see the world through different eyes (Nigeria in the process of colonization, South Africa on the cusp of Apartheid, and Europe in World War 2)—and that’s important!—now students can detect important hints in a complex work of literature all on their own. For instance, one student noted the oddness of even having a hotel room numbered 404 in a country that superstitiously avoids the number 4 because it is pronounced the same as “death.” 

Additionally, the students themselves were able to detect and ask why there are so many allusions to Western culture--music (mostly jazz), literature (from George Orwell to Snow White), and movies (Alfred Hitchcock)--which led us into a discussion of Murakami as a current writer who is quite popular, but suspect by the keepers of the gates of Japanese literature as not being “Japanese” enough. A student volunteered, “You mean that normal people can get into it.” Exactly. 

The normal teenagers in my class have certainly gotten into it. Not only do they walk into the room discussing it, and carry out, without prompting, textbook discussions in small groups, it also carries over into whole group discussions (my Nemesis). After the first reading assignment, when it was time for each small group to share one observation or question with the whole group—the time where after one group shares and I say, “Does anyone else want to build on or respond to that?” and it is mostly met by silence—the groups were calling out, “Oh, we talked about that, too!” and added what they had talked about. 

In addition, they asked EACH OTHER traditional “teacher questions”—because they really wanted to know. After the second reading assignment, one student who had read ahead, turned to the rest of the class and demanded, “So what do you guys think is going to happen next?”   

On the way out of class on Thursday, the student who is reading the novel in Japanese on his phone as well as in English in the book pleaded, “I have so many more questions! Can I come talk to you at lunch?” What red-blooded English teacher could turn down a request like that? OF COURSE I have time to talk about a book at lunch. “I read a lot of Japanese books,” he said, “but nothing this complex.” 

It is important to scaffold students into reading books that are windows into other cultures and times. It is also important to have students read books that are mirrors where they see their own culture and time. Especially in February.

What books do your students read where they see themselves?

P.S. I'm happy to share my unit guide and assessment prompts with anyone who is interested--message me your email.