BOOK AND FILM REVIEWS
FREEDOM’S TEACHER: The Life of Septima Clark. By Katherine Mellen Charron. University of North
Carolina Press, 2009. 480 pages. $35.
Katherine M. Charron, assistant professor of history at North Carolina State University, invested more
than a decade into conducting research for and writing Freedom’s Teacher: The Life of Septima Clark.
This well-researched book chronicles Clark’s evolution from a naive young teacher to a daring advocate
for integration. After a couple of decades teaching in public schools, Clark became radicalized by
participating in NAACP desegregation efforts, which ultimately cost her teaching position. This led to her
joining the Highlander Folk School in Monteagle, Tennessee, where she developed her citizenship
pedagogy, a practical educational approach defined by reciprocity, indigenous leadership, contextdependent strategies, and tactics borrowed from the missions of earlier black women’s movements.
Clark sought to link “practical literacy with political and economic literacy” (p. 5). Afterward she would
move into mainstream political activism with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, working
with civil rights advocates such as Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Baker, Martin Luther King Jr., Andrew Young,
and Stokely Carmichael. Charron’s narrative provides the reader with new ideas about education and
activism, the chronological trajectory of the Civil Rights Movement, and the contribution of black
women to that movement.
In 1898, Septima Poinsette was born to a semi-respectable family in genealogy-conscious
Charleston, South Carolina. In this era, the city remained ruled by a white paternalistic aristocracy
dependent on black maids, servants, cooks and menial. Within the city’s racial caste system, genealogy
played a critical role in shaping both opportunities and activism for black women. As an independentminded educator, Clark learned firsthand how class stratification coupled with strict ideas of
respectability—along with the outright snobbery—could serve to create professional barriers and
personal discomfort. Charron begins by explaining how “slavery’s vicious pruning disfigured Septima
Earthaline Pointsette’s family tree” (p. 19). When Clark married a “stranger and a sailor,” she was
further marginalized by “respectable black Charleston” (p. 83). Early on, Charron demonstrates how the
ambivalent relationship between Clark and community stakeholders both hampered her career and
pursuit of domestic felicity while informing her educational activism.
In 1916, Clark began her career teaching the poor, black, Gullah-speaking residents of Johns
Island. During this era, policy-makers and philanthropists began to abandon the former egalitarian vision
that both black and white missionaries held to when educating black southerners. Educators gave up
their dreams of creating enlightened and cultured black citizens. As a consequence, black teachers were
forced to prepare their students for vocational education. This new social conservatism created the
challenges around resources and a curriculum that Clark faced in trying to teach over 100 impoverished
students in a district with minimal resources. While Charron does not develop a detailed image of these
inhabitants or their lives, she helps the reader appreciate how working on Johns Island enabled Clark to
cultivate empathy and the communication skills needed to relate to the local population as well as the
tenacity and resourcefulness that informed her can-do attitude. These formative experiences were
central to her pedagogical approach. She taught other literacy educators to appreciate the strength
within each community and to help communities develop autonomy through putting aside their agenda.
After leaving Johns Island, Clark developed professional relationships and furthered her
education to improve her social status as an African-American educator. In 1918, she was invited to join
the faculty at Charleston’s Avery Institute in response to increased student enrollment. Around the
same time, she joined the NAACP’s campaign to promote the hiring of black teachers. In 1920, the state
legislature passed a resolution that resulted in the hiring of 55 black teachers and several black heads
and assistant heads of school. Charron argues that “[Clark’s] involvement in [this] fight . . . exposes the
deeper roots of the Southern black political insurgency during the New Reconstruction” (p. 95). Though
Clark experienced a certain level of professional failure due to her inability to negotiate faculty rivalries
and successfully accommodate families, this only contributed to her development as a community
leader. She continued to learn that presumption, on her part, created barriers between her and the
people that she wanted to help.
Making progress in her teaching career and educational activism outside of St. Johns Island
coincided with trauma and personal failure as well. Following the end of the Great War in May 1919, the
waves of the “red summer” washed over the country. Charleston was not spared the trauma. Clark
witnessed a local riot that left 27 people injured and 2 black men murdered, and eventually led to 50
arrests. During this period, the handsome, young Nerie David Clark sailed into Charleston Harbor. The
young sailor caught Septima Pointsette’s eye. Although he was a stranger to Charleston’s black
community, she decided to marry him following a brief courtship. Their socially erroneous marriage was
marred by a string of traumatic events, including the loss of their first child, feuds with family members,
and Clark’s discovering Nerie’s bigamy and infidelity, which was soon followed by Nerie’s early death
due to illness. Marital inequalities, deception and betrayal led Clark to decide against remarrying.
According to Charron, singleness provided Clark with enough personal autonomy to lead in the struggle
for black enfranchisement and equality. She returned to teach on Johns Island, a site she would revisit
time and again.
In 1929, Clark relocated to Columbia, the state capital, to participate in a program for black
educators and prepare for citizenship training on a new level. Charron explains, “Clark’s interwar
activism expressed itself in female-centered professional and civic organizations whose collective impact
provided potent fertilizer for some of the most important germinations of the period” (p. 119). In this
section of the book, one clearly begins to see Charron’s argument about the relationship between
African-American women’s grassroots educational efforts and activism. In Columbia, Clark lived and
worked among the black professionals of the Waverly neighborhood. Unlike Charlestonians, black
Columbians were not obsessed with ancestral heritage: “Everyone mixed, and the school teacher was
considered rather high up on the social ladder . . . the doctor’s wife and the school teacher and the
woman working as a domestic sat down together at the bridge table” (p. 121). Clark’s job at Booker T.
Washington High School allowed her to grow as both a professional and community activist.
At Booker T. Washington, all the teachers were affiliated with the Palmetto State Teacher’s
Association (PSTA), whose mission was “retaining black control of black education” (p. 129). The PSTA’s
leaders sought to engage white political power brokers to obtain “curricular improvements and
[strengthen] faculty credentials” in order to “equalize educational opportunity” for African-Americans
(pp. 130-131). In this section, Freedom’s Teacher dovetails with other literature that seeks to change the
chronology of the Civil Rights Movement. Charron does so by revealing how black women’s formative
activism in the educational arena served to clear the path for critical campaign to desegregate the South
following Brown v. the Board of Education.
In the 1930s, Clark would learn from a white progressive reformer, Wil Lou Gray, who taught
adult literacy as a means to develop agency. Gray believed that literacy had psychosocial and political
implications. Although adult literacy had been a part of the black experience since slavery, during this
period in Clark’s work, pedagogical approach moved from an emphasis on “vocational education” to
stress on building esteem, a vision of inclusion, and “political competence” (p. 147). While Clark was not
a leader in Gray’s adult school movement, Charron astutely argues that “her experience allows us to
more fully understand the political training received by thousands of black women educators and civic
activists in the segregated South and the organizing tradition that they fashioned from it” (p. 148).
Clark’s work led her to synthesize the relationship between “political, economic, social, and educational
problems” (p. 148).
A significant turning point in Clark’s development as a civil rights activist and integrationist
occurred when she developed a relationship with Judge Waties and Elizabeth Waring. Judge Waring’s
friendship and political views pushed Clark toward political activism, focusing on voter registration. Most
black Charlestonians resisted developing relationships with whites. Clark, however, continued to have
an ambivalent relationship to local black women and their social organizations. The Warings’ friendship
provided impetus for her to go “safely across the doorway of freedom and democracy” (p. 180). It had
taken a while for their friendship to evolve, but when Elizabeth Waring shared that she was leaving the
South, Clark’s “‘tongue became loosened . . . a new creature had welled up within’” (p. 289). This rebirth
coincided with courage and a determination to confront fear. Charron underscores this point because as
student activism increased in the sixties, Clark was accused of gradualism.
Part of Clark’s relationship with the Warings involved their mutual frustration with the
irresolution of local blacks and incremental change within the political structure. The aggravating
disunity among black Charlestonians and the fearfulness of the teachers involved in political
organization gave Clark the courage to fully embrace radical activism by developing a deeper
relationship with the Warings. Charron explains, “Crossing Broad Street, Septima Clark had stepped over
a line. And there would be no turning back” (p. 215). At the time, Clark began to pay attention to the
NAACP’s juridical and political activity. Finding that few blacks had the educational background to clearly
assess political issues, she gained a greater commitment to voter education. Increased radicalization
would lead to Clark’s involvement with the Highlander Folk School (HFS) the executive director of the
African-American YWCA, where Clark was active, returned from a conference there. White Southerners’
suspicions about socialism and communism would not stop Clark from getting involved with the school
before relocating.
In 1932, Myles Horton and Don West established the HFS to run residential workshops
empowering ordinary people to expand democracy. At Highlander, Clark discovered an egalitarian
approach to activism that forced her to confront her own hierarchal understanding of leadership.
Horton argued, “‘We must have leadership rooted in community. By teaching people to train others, we
are spreading leadership and in so doing are reaching out in a manner that would be otherwise
impossible’” (p. 221). In 1953, an increasing concern with Jim Crow education moved Horton to begin
workshops on desegregation. The following year, the nation would witness the U.S. Supreme Court’s
decision to integrate schools in Brown v. Board of Education. Clark’s earlier work had implications for
HFS. “[Clark], not Horton, recognized practical literacy as a key to political liberation for the black
grassroots,” writes Charron (p. 217). During this era, Clark began developing an “Education for
Citizenship” program in response to disparities in citizenship training in the state schools (pp. 246-247).
As a holistic teacher, she had a vision of citizenship that transcended enfranchisement.
Clark was primarily interested in helping her students transform into autonomous, selfdetermining agents. Her work on the Sea Islands involved dealing with basic literacy that affected the
locals’ ability to deal with basic political and economic issues. Charron demonstrates that Clark sought to
reproduce herself within the community so that she was no longer needed. Even as her relationship
with the Warings had provided a bridge for Clark, Charron argues, “Citizenship School graduates crossed
over: they went from silently accepting things as they were to raising their voices to influence how
things should be” (p. 263). By teaching adult literacy classes in the Sea Islands, Clark succeeded in
“helping people help themselves” and began to develop her own political efficacy (pp. 262-263).
Nonetheless, Clark struggled with Horton over his top-down leadership style and strategy. She fretted
over the lack of integration in workshops as well. While Clark was deeply concerned about the lack of
integration, local white supremacist officials were equally as concerned about her success.
Fearing integration, white supremacists labeled HFS a “Communist” organization in order to
discredit their work. The situation became worse when Abner Berry, a journalist for a communist
newspaper, showed up at the school’s 25th anniversary celebration and was photographed with Martin
Luther King Jr., Horton, and Clark. Local law enforcement raided HFS and arrested Clark on a trumped-up
charge of having sold alcohol. In the end, the school was forced to close for mismanagement of assets.
This blow did not stop Clark’s work, however; the citizenship schools had spread beyond the South.
Charron reports, “By late 1961, Highland claimed that 1,500 adults studied in Citizenship Schools in forty
Southern communities” (p. 274). Clark continued to impact rural and urban black communities by
developing indigenous leadership.
HFS leadership, however, was another issue. Clark and Horton’s volatile relationship further
deteriorated when Horton described her as a tool that needed his guidance due to her inability to see
the big picture. Charron explains, “Contrasting perceptions of the most effective way to propagate the
CSP lay at the root of Horton’s misrepresentations of Clark’s competence” (p. 286). The root problem
involved Clark’s commitment to indigenous leadership and context-dependent strategies. The changes
in the movement were heralded when two weeks prior to the inception of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee, Ella Baker and Clark brought an interracial group of students to HFS. As
students began to predominate, the organization would promote a white student over Clark. Charron’s
description of Clark’s transition from the HFS to greater involvement with the Southern Christian
Leadership Conference (SCLC) reveals the challenges that women faced in male-dominated movements.
Even as Clark became more influential, Horton and other leaders made decisions about her salary and
role in the movement without her input. Charron explains, “One of the greatest . . . hurdles involved
making her voice heard and garnering respect for her lived experience, expertise, and her opinions. The
crux of the matter was not that she was African-American but that she was a woman operating within
organizations where men dominated the decision making” (p. 299). Unfortunately, Charron chooses not
to excavate the intersection between race and gender. According to Clark, men’s objectification of
women seemed the most monumental hurdle to overcome. This perspective blinded Clark to the role of
racial paternalism in the movement.
In the end, however, it came back to strategy. Clark stuck to her guns, maintaining that “the
place where things really count and where people really grow is the local community level” (p. 302). This
strategy, under the auspices of the SCLC, allowed the Citizenship Education Program to spread across
the South, impacting activism and political engagement in its wake. Charron explains, “As on the quiet
Sea Islands, the program’s success depended on its ability to move quietly into a community and begin
to attack the psychological ramparts created by a lifetime of living in a segregated society.” This
newfound freedom moved individuals and communities “to risk their lives and livelihoods” (p. 303). The
program allowed citizenship schoolteachers to train hundreds of their colleagues and tens of thousands
of students.
Over time, Clark’s system would gain momentum and strategies would change, but activism and
education created a power strategy for sustaining the SCLC’s inertia. Many of these individuals were the
black women who worked in both the HFS and CEP, so much so that the movement’s agenda coincided
with the broader women’s movement and dealt with “education, job opportunities and wage
differentials, health care, child care, reproductive freedom, protection from sexual violence, and respect
for womanhood” (p. 304). Disparities between men’s and women’s salaries even appeared within the
CEP, with Clark making substantially less than her new SCLC boss even though she would have to train
the middle-class young man how to deal with the poor. The trajectory of Septima Clark’s life and career
reveals how black women have promoted change in our society.
The final chapter of Freedom’s Teacher uses Mississippi as a case study. Charron explains that
she chose to do this for two reasons. There is an abundance of material on the state that exists in two
great books: Charles Payne’s exceptional I’ve Got the Light of Freedom (Berkeley: University of
California, 1995) as well as John Dittmer’s Local People (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1994). Charron
retells what is known about the civil rights agitation putting Citizenship School folks and women at the
center. The Freedom Democratic Party emerges in part because of Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee (SNCC) organizing but also because people learned how to organize from the precinct level
up in the Citizen Education Program. Community-level involvement called for dealing with internalized
racism. Charron argues, “People do not decide to risk their lives and livelihoods because an organization
talks them into it. They choose to do so because something inside of them changes. For thousands of
black southerners, the CEP fostered that transformation” (p. 304). Citizen Education Program veteran,
Victoria Gray Adams explained, “Until you free a person mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, you can’t
accomplish very much, but as those things happen, oh my Lord, it just gets better.” After SCLC took over
the HFS program—changing the name to Citizenship Education Program—the new schools spread
throughout the South. In 1961, Clark, Dorothy Cotton, and Andrew Young taught almost 300 classes that
led to the registration of 13,266 voters in one year.
Finally, Charron seeks to help us track black women’s transition into federally funded projects as
the CEP’s efforts came to an end. In this way, Charron demonstrates the connection between grassroots
activism and educational efforts to deal with poverty and inequalities on the federal level. Lyndon
Johnson’s “War on Poverty” created new programs like Head Start and the Office of Economic
Opportunity. Charron views these new areas as sites where black women expanded the goals and sites
of civil rights activism. As issues of sterilization emerged, reproductive freedom became a civil rights
issue as well. In the end, Charron would argue that we need to consider all of these goals of the Civil
Rights Movement. Doing so places women at the center of the story and intersects with standard
narratives of women’s liberation. At the same time, Freedom’s Teacher presents a vision of solidarity
and reconciliation across class and gender lines in the CEP. Despite being denied a voice in issues that
may have led to the ending of the movement (e.g., financial decisions and permanent site location),
black women, unlike their white counterparts, did not create separate organizations.
Freedom’s Teacher provides a refreshing new image of the Civil Rights Movement that helps the
reader understand the centrality of black women’s educational efforts in the struggle. Charron’s
narrative implies a new chronology, beginning with black women’s mission efforts in the South and
continuing through the struggles of their successors throughout the New Reconstruction, the Nadir
Period, the Great Depression, and two world wars. Charron deploys incredible sources when uncovering
statistics on expenditures on students by race, juvenile incarceration, teachers’ salaries, and
certification. A testimony to 12 years of fruitful research is found in other primary sources that include
government reports as well as personal and public archival material.
The strength of Charron’s narrative is its weakness—it is a biography of a movement centered on a
powerful figure. Charron skillfully uses Clark’s long life and impressive career to convince her reader of
the impossibility of disaggregating grassroots activism from grassroots education (with the
aforementioned implications). In the end, however, Charron makes choices that impede the reader from
gaining greater insight in the lives of the masses that are involved in perpetuating the educational and
political movement. Trying to avoid a top-down approach, she deftly includes the marginalized voices of
the individuals whose lives are transformed. Yet the traditional center remains. Often the reader is
overwhelmed with the larger story about various movements and their nonfemale and nonwhite
leaders. I felt, for instance, that I could have benefitted from hearing more about Clark and the Gullah
inhabitants on St. Johns Island However, these small criticisms aside, Freedom’s Teacher is a wonderful
read, granting the reader a greater appreciation of the power of black women and incremental change.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Max Hunter is a John Perkins Center Teaching Fellow at Seattle Pacific University and also acts as
managing editor of the Perkins Perspective Newsletter and community liaison. He has an A.M., Ed.M.,
and certificate in bioethics from Harvard Medical School, and is working toward a Ph.D. at the University
of Washington. His teaching and research center around bioethics, diversity in the classroom, the history
of ideas, and the importance of education. He is currently working on writing the story of his
transformation from a major drug dealer to a highly educated professor in the hopes of revealing many
deep problems still plaguing our nation and promoting dialogue toward solutions. Professor Hunter can
be reached by e-mail at [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>.
RECONCILING TEXTS: ENGLISH TEACHER REVIEWS
The word reconciliation from the Greek word all, meaning “other”. This root word is encompassed in the
Greek word allasso meaning “to make other than it is”, and “to transform.” The most common verb
form of allasso is katalasso, which means “to exchange with the other (and be transformed).” The
theological concept of reconciliation involves the salvation experience of Christ switching places with
fallen humans and transforming the fallen through this exchange. We see this exchange most powerfully
in the work of Christ who died for us while we were yet sinners (Romans 5:6-11; Colossians 1:19-22;
Ephesians 2:11-19). When teaching is a reconciling act, we can see teachers trading places with students
in classrooms by becoming co-learners, and students trading places with others through textual
transactions.
Multicultural texts create contact zones for reconciliation. Several English teachers and graduate
students at Seattle Pacific University advocate the following texts as a basis for opening up dialogue for
reconciliation:
Bigelow, K., Boal, M., Chartier, N., Shapiro, G. (Producers) & Bigelow, K. (Director) (2008) The Hurt
Locker [Motion Picture]. USA: Summit Entertainment.
Have you ever disabled a terrorist bomb in Baghdad? Me neither. Take a wild ride through some days in
the life of a US Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team during the Iraq War. Feel your palms
sweat and your teeth clench as you tick-tock closer to death than you’ve ever known. Experience the
pain of loss, the triumph of success, and the addicting power of war.
Whether conservative or liberal, if you have not experienced war firsthand, there is no way you
can understand what U.S. soldiers have experienced in the Iraq War. Whether you support or condemn
the war efforts, you must sympathize with the personal struggles soldiers have internally, as well as with
their families and loved ones, in a foreign land. The Hurt Locker brings people together, providing a
uniquely ambivalent yet reconciliatory look into the lives of some incredibly courageous men any
American would be proud to call a countryman. While the diversity of political belief is something that
we should value as Americans, it is good to take a step back and see those who are different from us,
those whose beliefs are opposed to ours, as human-especially when they are risking their lives for our
safety. This is the definition of reconciliation, after all.
This text could be incorporated into a high school unit about the Iraq War or the conflict in the
Middle East. While I would not recommend it for an audience younger than those approaching the age
of enlistment, I think that it fosters important thoughts about the reasons why America is at war without
passing judgment or coming down conclusively on either side of the Iraq War debate. While some of its
content may be too graphic for some students, the moral and emotional gravitas The Hurt Locker
conveys makes the risk worth the benefit.
Sara Hendrickson
Hurston, Zora Neale. (1937) Their Eyes Were Watching God. New York, HarperCollins Publishers. 219
pages, $10, IBN: 0060838671.
Janie sees herself as a blossoming peach tree, reaching for the sky, opening herself to all of life’s
experiences. And life certainly sends her some trials. Hurston illustrates the constant search for self
through her serial-marrying, store-managing, shack-living, traveling, grieving and loving story. In her
search for personal voice, the reader witnesses violence, oppression, and escapism. The young black
woman is given away in marriage as a teenager, and, through several decades, her story of
reconciliation with what it means to be a person and a black woman in early 20th century America is
inspired as well as provoking.
Hurston’s text encourages reconciliation on multiple levels. Her characters use varying dialect,
encouraging mainstream readers to consider the depth of nonstandard forms of English. Rather than
using language as a barrier to determine rank and status in our culture, we can use it as a bridge into the
others’ experiences—and be reconciled to them. Eliminating objectification of the “stranger” is a theme
of Hurston’s worth investigating. Where poverty and race are constant walls between people, Their Eyes
builds a world of understanding across these themes through its vibrant imagery and accessible
narrative. While Hurston points out systemic flaws and issues of contention, she simultaneously tells a
human story that bridges the gap.
Classes studying Their Eyes Were Watching God may approach reconciliation through different
lenses. A mock trial based on Janie’s trial would illustrate issues of legal reconciliation. Racial
reconciliation themes suffuse the novel and students could compare early 1930s concerns with
contemporary issues. Language and personal voice are perhaps the most intense and prolific themes in
the text. By considering the development of personal voice, students can approach historic oral
traditions, storytelling, nonstandard dialects and notions of personal truth—all foci of reconciliation.
Hurston’s voice, and that of her characters, will resonate with readers, and the importance of forging
one’s own voice comes across loud and clear in this text.
Suzanna Calvery
Cheadle, D. (Producer), & Higgins, P. (Director). (2004). Crash [Motion Picture]. United States: Lions
Gate Entertainment.
In a world as big as the one we live in, do the actions of each individual really make a difference?
The movie Crash depicts how one prejudice, one stereotype, and one seemingly innocent judgment can
make a world of difference. Following a multitude of people from different ethnicities in the bustling city
of Los Angeles, Crash depicts the falling domino effect of stereotyping as the characters’ lives become
interwoven into one another. A white police officer becomes angry with a black HMO clerk and takes
out his frustration on a black couple that he pulls over later that night. An upper-middle-class white
woman, who has been robbed by an African-American, later has her locks replaced by a Latino male.
Within earshot of the man, she demands her husband have the locks replaced again the next day as she
is certain that the Latino locksmith will just sell the keys to a friend, who will in turn burglarize the house
later. As the movie unfolds, more people become victim to bigotry and racial stereotyping as they
“crash” into each other. The climax is reached when some near-death incidents occur that bring
together formerly estranged characters. Can their racism be pushed aside for the good of humanity or
are their roots so deep that even the threat of death causes resistance?
Crash is a reconciling text because it allows us to see the effects of stereotypes and how those
judgments can cause further prejudices in others; a backward view of “pay it forward.” The movie
requires individuals to assess their own life and actions. In my life, it forced me to see my own horrific
preconceived notions toward others. The dark- skinned man walking down the street in baggy jeans,
holding the hand of a little girl—“Probably an illegitimate child” I think. But maybe I am wrong. Could he
be a hard-working man, devoted to his little girl, and taking evening college courses to better the lives of
his family members? The white girl I see in the coffee shop with a pierced nose, blue fingernail polish,
and a tattoo that covers her entire arm; I scoff at her lack of decency. Then on Sunday I see her devoting
her time to children’s ministry and worshiping the Lord passionately during service. Crash forced me to
see the good in others that I might not have previously seen. While I still have not mastered this art, I
have attained a better understanding of what it means to be in another person’s shoes and try to see
Christ in each and every person I encounter, regardless of outward appearances.
Crash would be an excellent tool for the discussion of civil rights in the United States. Although
we have come a long way in regards to equality, prejudices still seep deeply into the cracks of our
society. After a study on the Civil Rights Era, this movie could be used as supplemental text for students
to reflect on the current status of race. Citizens today are free to enter any public place or use any
facility by law, but are they free socially? Does racism still hinder some personal freedoms? How do
prejudices affect your daily life (either on the giving or receiving side the movie depicted both)? Is it safe
to say we all suffer from both ends of the prejudice spectrum? This movie would require school, district,
and parent support as it deals with some difficult issues and depictions, but depictions that are real to
our society and that should not be overlooked.
Elizabeth Marmino
Alexie, Sherman. (2007). Flight. New York. Black Cat. 181 pages, $14.00 US. ISBN-13: 978-0-8021-70378, ISBN-10: 0-8021-7037-4.
Flight is the story of Zits, a 15-year-old biracial child of the foster system. By the time the reader comes
upon him, Zits has already been shuffled through twenty foster homes. He explains, “My entire life fits
into one small backpack” (p. 7). But this is not solely a book about the gritty reality of being a foster kid.
It is also a surreal journey through history, and across boundaries of race and bigotry.
Just like in the ’80s sci-fi TV show, Quantum Leap, Zits jumps into various other characters.
Though unlike Sam, Zits retains the knowledge, memories and emotions of the bodies he inhabits. In this
way, Alexie masterfully requires the reader to take on shifting perspectives. As we follow Zits through
time, he is broken and lonely. He is vengeful. And when he risks being loved, we the readers hold our
breath in anticipation of another hurt.
This text could be used in a joint English/Social Studies unit on Native American history, as it
references events from Custer’s last stand through the struggles of present-day indigenous peoples. It
would also be an excellent spark for multiple writing activities in which students respond to the various
identities that Zits embodies. Such activities may prompt students to see each other with a measure of
understanding and grace. Flight is a text of sorrow and healing, a deeply human story that will resonate
with adolescents and teachers alike.
Christie Johnston
Eugenides, Jeffrey. (2002). Middlesex. New York: Picador. 529 pages, $15.00. ISBN: 978-0-312-42773-3
Middlesex chronicles the life and familial history of Cal (née Calliope) Stephanides, born a
hermaphrodite in 1960s Detroit. Raised as a girl, but with the body of a boy, Calliope traces the family
genes that affected her gender through immigration, wars, depressions and political movements.
Middlesex, the town in which she was born, serves as an allusion to Calliope’s sexual duality, and the
struggles she overcomes to define herself. Spanning two continents and three generations, this oftentragicomic tale not only emphasizes Calliope’s own dramatic coming-of-age story, but also follows her
family’s immigrant tale of assimilation in their attempt to balance their Greek heritage and new
American identity. This novel serves to humanize that which we often misunderstand, and leads us to
speculate on the fluid definitions of gender, sexuality and cultural identity.
To take a step into Calliope Stephanides’ shoes is to embark on an incredible journey. Using this
text in the classroom would allow students to view the world from a minoritized view. Salient and
overarching themes in the book would allow students to legitimize the realities of those different from
themselves and humanize that which society labels as atypical. Mirrored with that perspective, the text
would also create questions about the duality of the immigrant experience, of cultural experience, the
“American Dream” and definitions of nationalism.
Furthermore, the text’s richness of voice and incredible prose could be used to discuss many
important components of literature and writing including the ancient story of the Bildungsroman,
Calliope’s tendency toward becoming an unreliable narrator, the rich use of voice, traces of Greek
mythology and historical context that defines the novel’s timeline. Middlesex is a text rich with
educational possibility. Calliope is not only an inviting heroine and narrator, but the story she weaves
will also stay with readers long beyond the novel’s final page.
Elizabeth Tacke
Haddon, Mark. (2003) The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time. New York, Random
House, Inc. 226 pages, $12, IBN:1-4000-3271-7.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon is the intriguing story of a fifteenyear-old boy seeking to solve the murder of a neighbor’s dog, despite the protests of those around him.
It is a coming-of-age story as the protagonist, Christopher John Francis Boone, learns that he can
succeed despite his fears. The novel also delves into the mind of someone with autism. Set up as an
autobiography as well as a mystery novel, the book shows the reader what the world looks like through
Christopher’s lens of autism.
This book is reconciliation texts for me because it enabled me to walk in Christopher’s shoes for
a little while. Autism has typically been a mystery to me—one I shied away from because I could not
understand the person behind the disorder. When reading the book, I felt like I was in Christopher’s
mind, thinking like him, doing math to clear my head. One of the things that stood out to me as I
reflected on the book was how Christopher processed emotions, or rather, did not process them. He
clearly understands what happy and sad are, but other emotions like confusion, surprise or anger are a
mystery to him, making communicating with him often frustrating. Before reading this book, I would
have probably have done what many people do and ignore or even tease someone with like
Christopher, because all I could see was his autism. Through this book, I was able to see Christopher
first, not his autism.
There are a couple of ways this text could be used in the education realm. It would be an
excellent addition to a special education course, especially one that deals with disorders such as autism.
It can help the student move beyond a textbook definition of autism by taking the reader into the mind
of a student with autism. It could also be used in an AP English classroom as a way to bridge the gap
between mainstream classrooms and the special education classroom. High school students are in the
process of learning where they and others fits into the world; this book is a powerful way to help them
see the world from another’s perspective.
Sara Gray
Mehta, D, & Hamilton, D. 2006 (US). Water. India & Canada: Deepta Mehta Films.
The film Water, by controversial director Deepta Mehta, revolves around the trials and tribulations of an
unfortunate eight-year-old widow. Hindu tradition forbids her from remarrying, forces her to shave her
hair, and relegates her to a provincial ashram. Faced with a lifetime of confinement, she must learn to
deal with a domineering headmistress and the menacing presence of prostitution. Set in Gandhi-era
India, this story of salvation is told through the lives of long-suffering widows, striking Ganges
landscapes, and, believe it or not, a meaningful love story. Intelligent, bold, beautifully crafted—
Bollywood at its best.
Water functions as a reconciling text through its portrayal of women struggling against
discriminatory cultural norms. Each has their own story to tell and their own means of coping with life’s
circumstances. However, instead of outright denouncing the custom, Mehta allows the experiences of
the women to speak for themselves. Nonetheless, the film was initially perceived as so threatening, that
local authorities denied her permits and protesters sabotaged the production, ultimately burning down
the set and throwing it into the Ganges. The project eventually relocated in secret to Sri Lanka, adopting
a fake working name and a new cast. Such a film represents art at its best in the pursuit of human truth.
In my teaching I could situate the text in a number of themes: gender issues, human rights, East
Indian history and culture, or even screenplay writing. I’m most inspired by its ability to offer social
commentary through an artistic medium. In that regard, I would have the flexibility to work the film into
the curriculum in a number of ways.
Keith Huntzinger