Category: Tool Box

My favorite book to teach is always the one that I’m doing with my students at the moment. Occasionally I’ll be waiting for the elevator next to a teacher from the math or careers department who will make an innocent attempt at small talk ask me which novel I like best, and I invest way too much emotional energy explain that I could never pick.

Except… Dracula is kind of my favorite. (Don’t tell Homer.) I have a real, formerly-live bat frozen in resin that I share with my students:

I bought this Edward Gorey Dracula paper doll theater for my students, but actually it was for me:

Teaching this novel is always a highlight of the year for me, and I’d like to make a case that you should consider bringing it to your classroom as well:

1. It’s about society’s fear of infectious disease. It’s about other things too, but the infection metaphor is a pretty strong thread. English society was coming to grips with the consequences of urbanization and post-colonial immigration, and tuberculosis was among those. Bram Stoker himself suffered from syphilis making swiss cheese of his brain. In a year when we want to guide students through the complex feelings that many of them are having about current events without overwhelming them, coming at the pandemic from an oblique angle might be the right strategy.
2. It’s the most fun a kid can have with Victorian-era syntax and diction. Compound-complex sentences with modifiers of all types abound, but — vampires! You get to blow the dust off of words like “badinage” and “vulpine.” It’s almost-painless preparation for close reading of pre-20th century texts.
3. You couldn’t find a better tool for teaching inference. The novel is epistolary in form, so student-readers take on the role of detective as they piece together the mystery through letters, journals, telegrams, and documents. Stoker uses dramatic irony to full effect so that the horror of Dracula’s dastardly plan is revealed to the reader far earlier than it is to the characters.
4. It offers a bite-sized introduction to critical theory; there are delicious possibilities in reading it through a Freudian, feminist, Marxist, or post-colonial lens. You could also make the case (and many of my students do) that the novel (as well as the recent BBC/Netflix adaptation) makes a strong Christian argument, and so that very flexibility of interpretation would make a case for reader-response!
5. The vampire folklore on which it is based invites some meta-reflection on how and why we tell stories. The mythology arose in Central and Eastern Europe out of a need to explain (you guessed it) epidemics of disease. The lesson on how we invent monsters to make sense of the things that scare us or that we don’t understand is one that applies to both other works of literature (Frankenstein, anyone?) but also the rhetoric and media of the 21st century.
6. There are so many rich opportunities for film analysis — tracing the evolution of Dracula’s depiction from the grotesque Count Orlok in Nosferatu (1922) to Jonathan Rhys Meyers’s seductive incarnation in the 2013 TV series, considering Werner Herzog’s singular aesthetic in the ‘70s Nosferatu reboot, appreciating Bela Lugosi’s masterful performance in the 1931 Universal film that would define the character in the popular consciousness, analyzing the humor of parody in What We Do in the Shadows (2014).
7. It’s in the public domain, which in the world of virtual teaching makes life just a little simpler. It’s also so easy to pull just excerpts or make an abridged version for your students based on your particular objectives.
8. Good triumphs over evil. In 2021, we need stories that give us hope, and while there’s lots to be gleaned from Shakespearean tragedies and postmodern meditations on the meaning (or meaninglessness) of life, maybe right now an unambiguous happy ending, at least in the stories that we consume.

If you’re ready to sink your teeth into this juicy novel, join us a community of teachers over on our Facebook group to share ideas and resources!

In the middle of last year, it looked as though I would finally realize my dream teaching assignment: an integrated English and world geography course for ninth graders. I was so excited to be able to teach about the settings of the literature we read in an interdisciplinary way. No longer would I navigate the border between text and context! The world was literally mine.

Like all plans born in 2020, this one wasn’t to be, at least not now. In July a septuagenarian colleague decided neither the prospect of returning face-to-face nor of teaching virtually was something that she was up for, so I picked up her sections of seniors.

But I was spending my quarantine summer taking National Geographic’s free “Mapping as a Visualization and Communication Tool in Your Classroom Course,” and I wanted to still find some ways to put those new understandings to use.

So here it is, how I’m teaching-geography-without-teaching-geography, five ways that English teachers can sneak maps into their curricula:

1. Take inventory of your reading list.

Maps help us to mentally process data, and one immediate application is in developing a picture of the literature that we teach. I created this map using the “my maps” feature of Google Maps to audit who and what I was teaching. I was able to layer authors’ origins, authors’ genders, and the settings of the books we read as part of my ninth-grade curriculum:

When you look at information in this way, patterns emerge. The literature that I teach seems to be largely Western. Other regions of the world are represented, but often by a single text. The map by itself isn’t an argument or evaluation, but this visualization helps me to ask some questions about what and how I’m teaching. Are there works in translation that I’m missing out on? Are the depictions of non-Western people in the literature we read authentic?

Here’s how to do this yourself:

2. Support students in reading comprehension.

In my new senior-level English class, we started the year reading Homer’s Iliad, the classic story of the Trojan War. Something like ¾ of the way through the epic poem, I realized that students were having trouble tracking the action of the plot because they didn’t have a visual understanding of the features of the physical environment. How was it significant that Helen and Priam are having a conversation on top of the city walls? Why was it such a big deal that the Trojan forces fought their way to the Myrmidon encampment of the Greek forces?

Last year I had students track the characters’ movement across Western Europe in The Count of Monte Cristo, and I know that experience helped them to understand an intricate plot based on deception and subterfuge.

So this year, if I had taken some time to sketch out – or have students sketch out – the world we were working with, the characters’ choices would have made much more sense to them. Oh well – now I know better for next year!

3. Explore setting and context.

My ninth-grade students also start the year with Greek mythology in the form of Homer’s Odyssey. I love to show them maps of Odysseus’s journey – even though he wasn’t a real character (as far as we know!), we can trace the origins of some of the myths to different actual locations.

But this year, I also asked my students to create maps of their own for a different facet of the mythology: Odysseus’s descent to the Underworld. In Book 11, Odysseus must travel to Hades to consult with the ghost of a prophet about how to return to his home. The world of the Greek afterlife was a rich setting, and the different physical features and boundaries help us to understand the mood of the text. Below are some of my favorites, but check out some of the others!

4. Consider perspective, bias, and argument in visual texts.

Maps can not only help us to understand texts but can also be texts themselves. The same questions that we ask about other artifacts – speeches, political cartoons, advertisements – are equally valid when considering how mapmakers choose to represent physical space.

Consider the Mercator Projection’s racist origins and effect. Or take a look at the here-be-dragons maps of centuries past warning people not to veer too far away from the familiar.

This article from National Geographic – “Why your mental map of the world is (probably) wrong” – invites teachers and students to check the ways in which our understanding of reality might be inconsistent with the truth and meditate on how we might have come by that false knowledge. And the Atlas of Prejudice – which I certainly wouldn’t use with younger students – would make a nice “body of work” for IB Language and Literature students or an element of the synthesis question for AP Language.

5. Visualize plot through metaphorical maps.

Finally, ELA teachers, I bet you’ve actually been using maps all along. If you’ve ever taught Campbell’s monomyth/the hero’s journey or Freytag’s triangle for plot, you’ve been using maps. Granted, this are models that demonstrate a character’s movement through metaphorical or emotional space, but that movement is often layered alongside a physical journey.

That’s it! Maybe there is a secret geography teacher in you too!

On our second day together, I asked my ninth grade students to fill out a short survey; the last question was “What would you like for me to know about you?” I was glancing back over their answers today, and it just struck me that in the collective they formed this really beautiful portrait of what it is to be a 14-year-old kid starting high school in the middle of this tough year, so I did some cutting and pasting and assembled them into a poem:

What I Would Like for You to Know about Me

English is my favorite subject.
Football is my favorite sport.

I have ADD.
I'm dyslexic.
I can get distracted.

I've been playing an Xbox game which immerses you into the Greek World during the Peloponnesian War.
I go by Kate.
I'm a team player and a hard worker.
I learn the best from watching educational YouTube videos. 
I like soccer, and I also like adventures.
I am still trying to adapt to online learning, so I might make a lot of mistakes. I hope you will understand!

I can be very quiet at times, but I will open up eventually.
I have really bad anxiety, so I might have to contact you about a lot of stuff.
I have never been good at describing myself, but once we are in person I know that you'll get to know me really well!

I’m tall.
I am an athlete..
I'm not very patient.
I talk a lot.
I am a little bit shy.
I don't have any allergies.
I'm very glad to be here.

I lived in Africa for two years.
I have a dog named Beverly and a cat named Bonita.
I would like to have a career in business and law.
I've been an Indian classical dancer since I was 4.
I might ask lots of questions bc I want to make sure I have everything right.

I have struggled with grammar in the past. I also do not feel confident in my writing. 
I want to be a screenplay writer.
I want to like writing.

I'm a slow learner.
I am forgetful. 
I like reading, and I also foster cats.
My parents discourage fun.

I am very good with technology. (Very good.)
I will devour any book that is put in front of me.
I’m very curious and like to know about history.
I will work diligently to complete my work.
I've invented something.
I don't know anything I would like you to know about me.
If you ever need a translator for Spanish, it's my first language and I am more than happy to help.

I look forward to the school year with you.