How convinced are we by Trites’ argument that lila’s xeroderma pigmentosum is “an embodied metaphor for racism (58),” that “xp may well be a metaphor for race in [a cool moonlight] (58)”? Are we not veering […]

This One Summer is a graphic novel from the creative duo behind Skim. In This One Summer, Jillian Tamaki and Mariko Tamaki pair up again to bring us the story of one girl’s summer: in a familiar place, Awago B […]

Just thought I’d share this piece written by Alexie ( June 9, 2011). Touches on some of the things we’ve been discussing in class.

“Why the Best Kids Books Are Written in Blood” 

He’s writing in response […]

Perhaps I’ve always just taken for granted that reading was indispensable for young people (and all people in general). As someone who worked as an Americorps Jumpstart member (it was literally all about the […]

I struggled with figuring out exactly where I wanted to take this discussion. Challenger Deep is such a rich text ripe for all different kinds of analysis. Did I want to discuss social constructionsim and […]

By Eileen Liang
I think I will always feel like a first-time instructor. The nerves I’ve been feeling since August are oddly reminiscent of my January butterflies before spring semester. Will this ever get e […]

By Eileen Liang
As the end of the semester drew near, I began the process of creating the final exam for my students. This was a strange task. I tried to create an examination that would be straightforward and […]

By Eileen Liang
“This is meant to be constructive and helpful,” my department chair said at our post-evaluation meeting. “Don’t worry!”

But I had been worried. I had fretted about this evaluation for weeks […]

By Eileen Liang
It never occurred to me that I could ask my students for feedback. But when a friend told me about her practice of having students fill out short in-class surveys about her class, I was intrigued. […]

By Eileen Liang
I’ve reached that point in the semester where I’ve officially diverged from my original course plan (a not uncommon predicament, as other VP contributors have recently attested). This is both exh […]

By Eileen Liang
It was the same nightmare: I’m standing in front of a room full of students – faceless, yet somehow staring – and my mouth opens and closes. No sound comes out. My heart pounds. My stomach rolls […]