316: Books We Love to Teach
What books have stayed with you because you read them in a classroom, or because you had the chance to teach them yourself? We’re kicking off season 10 with episode 316 and a conversation about books we love to teach. Jen shares why Stephen King’s On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) has been such a meaningful text for her students, and Ashley revisits Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) and the many reasons it works so well in the classroom.
Before we dive into our teaching discussion, we're also sharing our current reads: Kiran Millwood Hargrave’s Almost Life (Bookshop.org | Libro.fm) and Stuart Turton’s The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle (Bookshop.org). Plus, we wrap up with our first This or That of the season: physical book or e-reader?
We’re so glad to be back for season 10, and we hope you’ll join us!
Bookish Check-in
Main Discussion
Mentioned in Episode
Clint Smith’s Crash Course African American History episode about Zora Neale Hurston
This or That - Physical book or e-reader?
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Full Transcript for Episode
[00:00:00] Ashley: Welcome to the Unabridged Podcast. I'm Ashley.
[00:00:05] Jen: And this is Jen.
[00:00:06] Ashley: Join us for bookish episodes and check out our website unabridgedpod.com, where you can find lots of new bookish content to grow your TBR.
[00:00:13] Jen: Sign up for our newsletter to find out more about online book discussions and upcoming events. Find us on Patreon for extra Unabridged content.
[00:00:21] Join us on Instagram and Facebook at unabridgedpod and message us there or see our website to get plugged into the Unabridged community. You want opinions about books? We've got 'em.
[00:00:35] Ashley: Hi, and welcome to Unabridged. This is the first episode of season 10. This is number 316, and today Jen and I are discussing books we love to teach. Thanks for joining us again for another season. We enjoyed our summer, and we're excited to get started.
[00:00:51] If you are new here, we always do a book club pick every month and also a buddy read. The book club pick is one that we do discuss here on the podcast. The buddy read is one that we chat about on Instagram, but we do not discuss here on episodes. You're welcome to join us to read along with either of those, and you can find that info every month and any time on our feed on Instagram @unabridgedpod.
[00:01:16] So we'd love to have you join us there. We always start our episodes with a bookish check-in, and Jen, what is something you've been reading?
[00:01:23] Jen: I am reading Kiran Millwood Hargrave's Almost Life. This is part of a different buddy read on Instagram, and I think it's going to be great for discussion. It's a multi-decade book about two women. Erica is just out of high school in 1978, and post-graduation, she lives in England; she goes to Paris for the summer on her own.
[00:01:48] So she is sort of wandering the streets of Paris, and she sees this woman named Laure, who is a native Parisian; she is already in college. She's an art student. So they have an immediate attraction, and they have this passionate affair over the summer. Laure really wants Erica to stay, but Erica ends up going back to England and following her plan, going to university.
[00:02:15] Then the book sort of skips some time, and we see them at several points in the upcoming decades, and you get updates about where each of them is and what their lives are like and the ways that they've kept in contact or not, and the new lovers who have entered their lives and things like that.
[00:02:32] Laure has a very strong friend group who travels with her through the book, and one of the things I think the book does really well so far is show the progress in people's attitudes toward gay people and lesbians. So within her friend group, there is a gay man. Her best friend is Michel, and he is gay, and you see people's treatment of him shift in some ways, and people's treatment of Laure.
[00:02:59] So yeah, it's really interesting. The history is integrated in very smoothly, so it's not an obvious, like plant, like, notice this historical fact. It's just a part of their lives. But I did find that to be really interesting. So yeah, that is Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave.
[00:03:16] Ashley: Oh, that sounds really interesting, Jen. I hadn't heard about that.
[00:03:18] Jen: Yeah, I'm really enjoying it. The writing's really beautiful, and I've read a few books like that that kind of touch back after gaps of time, and you kind of miss out on the connecting material, but you see what has happened. Like, those little updates are interesting. It's an interesting approach to a text, yeah. Yeah, what are you reading, Ashley?
[00:03:35] Ashley: So one of the ones I'm reading is Stuart Turton's The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle. I have seen this one everywhere. So I think I've talked about this back in season nine, that, like, this year I've just been adding holds to my Libby account when people recommend stuff.
[00:03:53] And I always struggle with, like, lists and TBR and all that, but it has been pretty effective for me to just put in these holds for things that people have highly recommended. And then when they come in, I add them to my Kindle, and then I turn off my Wi-Fi, and I read that series of books. And then I let those go, and I get the next round.
[00:04:14] And that actually generally has really worked. But I can't remember what prompted me to put this one on my TBR. Again, I know I've seen it everywhere, but I'm pretty selective about what I put on my Libby one, and I just don't remember. It is, I'll say about it; Jen's gonna know where I'm going with this, I think.
[00:04:27] Do you know this story?
[00:04:28] Jen: Yes, I do.
[00:04:29] Ashley: Have you read this book? Okay, so I think you can anticipate how I'm gonna feel about it. Anyway, I did not realize when I started it, you start, and somebody seems to have, like, it's almost like they have amnesia. It felt a little, in the beginning, like, for those of us of a certain age, Quantum Leap-like.
[00:04:45] That, like, somebody's in a body, they don't seem to know anything about the body. And at first you think they have amnesia or something, but the more time passes, the more it's like, "Oh, is this, like, a body-hopping thing?" And it kind of is. So, there is this situation where someone is trying to solve a murder, and he is an ongoing protagonist, but he has several different hosts.
[00:05:05] And in those hosts, he has these different experiences that are all pointing toward a very complex picture of this one day during which he's trying to solve this crime, and all that's happening. I just don't like it. I don't like it. I don't.
[00:05:21] Jen: Love it. I did not love it. Yeah
[00:05:24] Ashley: I feel like if I had known, and Jen knows, we have read books together occasionally that have this sort of Groundhog Day premise, and I very rarely can enjoy those.
[00:05:34] But there are exceptions, and there are times where I'm like, "Oh, I did actually like that book even though I had to relive this thing, like, 20 times," but this is not one of those. So I am still- we talked about this right at the end of season nine, I think- like, do we DNF books? I still am in the, like, I'm just going to finish it camp.
[00:05:49] By the time I realized how much I was not particularly enjoying it, I felt like I was too far in to let it go, so I kept it; I kept going. But anyway, I don't know. I'm curious to see how it resolves, and maybe I'll change my mind. But thus far, meh. And again, that is Stuart Turton's The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle, and I feel like that is probably a hot take because I know a lot of people really love that book.
[00:06:11] So sorry if I'm coming out of the gate of season 10 upsetting people who loved it. I'd be curious to know, if you loved it and you're listening, what you loved, because I don't know why I'm not liking it. I'd heard great things about it. But anyway,
[00:06:23] Jen: Yeah, I read it, I think, shortly after it came out because everybody was raving about it, and I kept having that sort of sheepish, like, maybe it just hasn't kicked in yet. And I'll just say it never kicked in for me.
[00:06:36] Ashley: Okay.
[00:06:37] Jen: There's another book he's had since then. I was like, "I should try him again.n
[00:06:40] I've gotten better, I think, recently. There are a couple of authors that everybody loves that ... Maybe this should be an episode that it just doesn't work for me. It is okay. It is okay. I'm just so used to liking most books, you know, I'm pretty good at self-selecting.
[00:06:56] Ashley: Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. We'll see how it turns out. Today we're discussing books we love to teach, so each of us is gonna share a book that we have really loved teaching in the classroom, and a little bit about why it works well in the classroom, and also why we love the book. Jen, what is your choice?
[00:07:12] You have a lot to choose from. What'd you pick?
[00:07:13] Jen: Yes, I chose Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft. This can be an episode of mourning because for the first time, I'm not permitted by my school system to teach this book. It was not approved for the list. So I'm just going to talk about all the reasons I will miss teaching it. So the book is divided roughly into two sections.
[00:07:34] In section one, Stephen King writes his memoir, starting as a very young child. He calls it a CV, and he talks about both the experiences that inspired his writing and his journey to becoming a writer. So he talks about the first time he remembers writing a story. It was a little comic, and he showed his mom, and she really loved it, and so that experience of his mother seeing him as a writer.
[00:08:00] And he talks about sending manuscript after manuscript off to these magazines that would publish short stories, and getting rejection notes that he kept on his wall on a nail. And then later, he'd gotten so many rejection slips that he had to get a spike that was larger. But just his determination and his persistence to become a writer because that's how he saw himself.
[00:08:21] And what becomes really clear in this first section, and he says it outright, is that, yes, he's experienced a lot of fame, but that he would write no matter what. And his advice to the reader is to find something that you would do even if you didn't get paid for it, that you just love doing.
[00:08:40] And so I think that message really resonates with students, and even if they don't see themselves as writers yet, which I'll speak about in a moment, it is an inspiring message because I teach juniors and seniors. I usually teach this with juniors at this school, and they are just really thinking about their futures and connecting with that message.
[00:08:59] He also breaks a lot of rules in that first section, so he speaks directly to the reader. He does a lot of cursing, and that is something that I really enjoy talking about with students. What did you think of that? And some of them are very turned off by the cursing, and some of them think that it makes it feel like you're talking to a friend.
[00:09:16] They like the fact that he's very informal and pretty blunt about some of his opinions, and he is really open about talking about some of the challenges he faced. He was an addict for... Well, he says he's always been an addict, but he was experiencing alcoholism and drug addiction for a long time that interfered with his writing.
[00:09:35] He talks about his recovery from that. So that's the first half. And then in the second half, it is advice directly to writers. Now, it is directed at people who are trying to get published, so it is a little bit different for the students, but a lot of his advice is very relevant to their writing.
[00:09:51] And what I find about that second half is a lot of our students come to me only written five paragraph essays, a three-point thesis statement, and there's nothing wrong with that, but that is a very test-driven writing structure. And he sort of opens up the writing world for them and talks about, you know, when do you break the rules?
[00:10:09] What's the best way to start a piece? And so just them having the opportunity to really think about other options outside of this traditional kind of test-driven writing that you're doing for school is a revelation for a lot of students. And he includes some of his own work and shows how he revised it.
[00:10:28] He talks about... if you're a Stephen King fan, you probably remember the horrific car accident he was in that almost killed him. There's a small part at the end where he talks about how writing is really what brought him back from that. And so yeah, I find it to be a really powerful book, a really personal book, a great book to help students start seeing themselves as writers who have control of their work and can make choices.
[00:10:50] And so yeah, I've been teaching it for a long time, and I highly recommend it if you have the option to teach Stephen King's On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft.
[00:11:00] Ashley: Oh, Jen, yes. I love all those reasons for teaching it. I've read it, of course. I don't think I had read it till I met you, though. I think I read it because you shared it with me. But I have not taught it, and I do think it would work in so many different classes. Like, I'm thinking about how it would be so valuable in creative writing also.
[00:11:18] Jen: Yeah, it's a good one. All right, moment of sadness.
[00:11:21] All right, Ashley, what book would you like to talk about?
[00:11:24] Ashley: So I wanted to share Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. I love so many things about this book. First of all, I read this. I had an amazing English teacher for AP Lit my junior year, Carol Shrout, and she taught it. And so I really enjoyed reading it as a student. And then I read it again in college and did some pretty thorough, analytical work around it.
[00:11:47] And so that was a great revisiting. And then I taught it for AP Lit. I mean, there are so many things I love about it. I think that we have Janie Crawford, who is our protagonist. Okay, so Zora Neale Hurston was writing this in the 1920s as a Black woman. So for one thing, one of the things I love about it is the fact that we have this text from that time period that is so powerful and so well done, and it is largely thanks to Alice Walker and her efforts that we have Zora Neale Hurston's work today.
[00:12:14] And so I think part of what I love about it is we are getting this amazing story from an African American woman's perspective at a time when we don't have a lot of texts representing anything about a life in that setting. And so I love that. I also love the way that the story itself is told. I think that part of what is so amazing is that while we get a lot from the historical context, we get a lot from the setting; it's also just a good story, and it is well-written in a way that compels people to want to see what's gonna happen for Janie and to learn with her how her life is changing.
[00:12:52] It's also very much, although she is a woman, it is not a kid's perspective. It is still very much a coming of age in the sense of, like, she is coming into herself and being a whole and aligned and fulfilled person. And we really see that in the story, and I think that for high school kids is just such a beautiful thing to see.
[00:13:14] And I also love that it's an adult that we're seeing it with because I think that we often see coming of age with, like, this like 15-year-old who's like, "Buh-bu-buh, I have figured everything out, and the world is open to me." And I think sometimes that is a misrepresentation of what coming of age actually looks like.
[00:13:29] And so I think what I love about Janie is that she is a child, like, she's a teenager in the beginning, and she does get married at a very young age, which of course would've been very common in that time period. Nonetheless, we watch her growing into a woman and becoming independent, finding her own self, her own voice, and that process takes years and years, and a lot of experiences before that becomes what is happening in the book.
[00:13:54] And so I just love all of that because I think that is more real than what we sometimes see, which again, I mean, I love a coming-of-age story, and I think that is important for kids to get to read those and see, when it is set in sort of a high school setting.
[00:14:07] But I think that this text has that feature. It also has a lot of literary merit, as the Advanced Placement would like to refer to. So there's just a lot that we can really dig into as far as the language itself. It's very poetic. It's really beautiful, and so it just works on a lot of different layers, and it works for a lot of different kinds of students.
[00:14:27] We also often talk about windows and mirrors, and so, like, there, like, I think that you get some of both. Like, of course, our students today, we're looking at 100 years ago, so there is a way in which this is different from their experiences, and yet there are gonna be things that resonate for some students as feeling true to them. Then there's going to be things that are totally different from their life experience, and that it's really meaningful for them to read about and to see what it could be like.
[00:14:52] I will mention it has dialect in it, which sometimes- so, all the dialogue is written in dialect. That can be hard for students, so there is a great audiobook that I have not listened to, but Jen has.
[00:15:06] Jen: I have. It's narrated by Ruby Dee.
[00:15:08] Ashley: So very well done. And what I often encourage students so they could listen at least a little bit to get a sense of what it sounds like, because I think that helps.
[00:15:16] And then the other thing I would say to students is just read it out loud, because it is written as it sounds. So if they just sound it out, they will fall into the cadence of it very easily, I think. But it does take a little bit of practice. And again, that's a good challenge for students. It is not too hard to read, but I love the way that Hurston was really capturing exactly the way that people spoke, and she does that through her dialogue.
[00:15:40] And so you really see that, and it's really well done, but it does require a little bit of effort in the beginning. So something that, if you're doing this in a classroom, spending a little bit of time with students before sending them off on their own to read it would help them to connect with that dialogue specifically.
[00:15:56] Jen: Yeah, I started teaching this after Ashley left our school, and I started teaching AP Lit the year she left, and I started teaching it then. So I actually didn't read this in school at all. I read it years later on my own just because it was one of those books that had been on my list forever and loved it, but I started teaching it after Ashley, who generously shared her lesson plans with me.
[00:16:16] I still teach it, and students really love it and love to discuss it. I will also recommend that there's a great Crash Course African American History episode about Zora Neale Hurston that Clint Smith narrates. He's the narrator of all of those episodes, and it is excellent.
[00:16:34] So if you wanna give them some background on Hurston and her anthropological credentials, which fed into that portrayal of the dialect, it's really fascinating, and they can see what she was able to accomplish as a Black woman at a time when that, of course, was incredibly challenging for her to receive the education that she had.
[00:16:52] Ashley: Yeah. There's so much about it, and I didn't wanna give any spoilers, so I didn't wanna talk too much about the plot specifically in case you have not read it. But I think that the plot is really powerful also in the way that she, through her experiences, becomes this really self-actualized version of herself, which I think is really powerful.
[00:17:12] So again, that's Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God, and I think it is a great fit for the classroom for our older and more advanced readers.
[00:17:19] Jen: Absolutely
[00:17:20] Ashley: This season we are going to do a this or that for some of our episodes. And so today our this or that topic is physical book or e-reader, Jen.
[00:17:33] Jen: I'm afraid that many of my this or that answers for bookish things are going to be both. So that is true here. I do love a physical book. There's something about it, just that feeling of moving through the pages, that tangible sense of this is a text I am reading. But I love my e-reader because it can be so helpful when traveling.
[00:17:52] I can put books on there and just keep them on there for a while for the library. I do the same trick Ashley does of turning off the Wi-Fi so then the library can loan it to somebody else, but I don't have to meet that due date, and that is totally legitimate. I've had that approved by librarians. And yeah, so I think both have a really important place in my reading life.
[00:18:13] How about you, Ashley?
[00:18:14] Ashley: Oh gosh, I saw this on our document, and I was like, I am like 99% an e-reader these days. So in my heart, I would like to be a physical book reader still. It was really hard for me to make the switch. And between travel and kids and everything else, which our family has had a lot of in the last, my oldest is now 12.
[00:18:34] So in those 12 years specifically, we've moved a lot. We have traveled overseas quite a bit, and it's become the case that the e-reader is the thing that I use, and in fact, The Dog Stars is the first print book I've read in quite a while. I did order a physical copy, so we're gonna be talking about that for our book club this month, and I ordered a physical copy because I already knew I loved it so much and I didn't have it.
[00:18:54] But these days, unless I know for sure that it's a book I really want on my shelf, I tend to do the e-reader or audiobooks, of course, so. Well, thank you for joining us today. We're so excited to be back with season 10. We hope you had a great summer, and we look forward to reading book club with you again this month.
[00:19:13] We're doing Peter Heller's The Dog Stars, which you probably are aware that there's a movie coming out soon for that, so that's what prompted us to visit that one for our book club. We hope you join us with that. Again, you can find us at unabridgedpod on Instagram. Thanks for listening.
[00:19:26] Jen: Do you have comments or opinions about what you heard today? We'd love to hear them. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @unabridgedpod, or on the web at unabridgedpod.com for ways to support us. To get more involved, you can sign up for our newsletter, join a buddy read, or become an ambassador.
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