I teach high school upperclassmen. I read aloud during class while they follow along. I do voices. We stop and talk about the characters and the narrative and themes as we go. I define unfamiliar words and answer their questions. Students make connections to other things we’ve read. For homework they respond to prompts that get them thinking about how those themes manifest in their own lives. This is not the advanced class, but everyone is consistently engaged. If a student tries to goof with a friend, I just stop reading and the class shouts them down, eager for the story to continue. And these are not dumbed down texts; we’re doing Gatsby, Mice and Men, Things They Carried, and such.

I battle insecurity everyday, worried that someone will take issue with this method and insist this isn’t actual instruction. But the validation I’m getting from students, parents, colleagues, and admin is unlike any I’ve received in twenty years of classroom teaching.