By Emily Wright

On my last blog post for My Reading Life, I shared how my interest in historical fiction began during my carefree elementary school days. But when adulthood hits, a person realizes just how little time there actually is in a day. As a wife, mother, and teacher, I hardly ever have time to read for pleasure. Whenever I pick up a book during the week, I find myself all of a sudden waking up an hour later slumped over on the couch, the poor book lying discarded on the floor. Other times, I will stay up until 1 AM reading chapter after chapter and then pay for it the next day. 

However, since I’m a high school English teacher, I still get to spend my days with books, this time with the added bonus of introducing students to literature. During the course of my nine years of teaching, I have taught a variety of stories and classic novels and created opportunities for students to interact with literature in a variety of ways. Literary theory on Poe’s “The Fall of the House of Usher;” debates on various topics pertaining to The Scarlet Letter; making up song parodies for themes and characters in The Crucible; creating “found poetry” from chapters out of The Great Gatsby. My absolute favorite thing is whenever my students choose to make short films for extra credit. Through the years, I’ve had students video themselves acting out critical scenes from The Scarlet Letter, pretending to be characters from The Crucible in a talk show, and putting together their own movie version of The Great Gatsby. Currently, we are reading The Joy Luck Club by Amy Tan, and it makes me happy to see that a few students have bought their own copy of the novel with their own money because they are enjoying it so much. 

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To me, books are more than just paper bound inside a nice cover. They are a way to see new perspectives, to learn lessons about life and what it means to be human. No matter if the novel was published in 1850 or 2024, there are always nuggets of truth to be found within the printed black ink. That is why I love what I do: I get the opportunity to share life lessons with high school students through sharing my love of reading. 

What are some books that you remember from high school?

 

 

Known for her page-turner stories and well-developed characters, Emily Wright is a writer of Christian historical fiction. She is the author of the Trials of the Heart series (Trial of Strength, Trial by Fire, and Trial of Courage) and has also been published in The Copperfield Review and The Tennessee Magazine. She lives in Tennessee with her husband, daughter, and Labrador retriever.