Erica at the Huntington

I've spoken of my daughter Erica in class pretty often, and I thought you might enjoy getting a better idea of what she looks like. I have to say that I have all the failings of a mom. I can't speak highly enough of her and at times my praise can seem out of proportion to the possible. Somehow I was gifted with a daughter who loves to read and write. She is constantly picking up anything she sees and reading it, and she even keeps her own electronic journal every day, that is, when she isn't exhausted from school work. Right now she's reading The Chronicles of Narnia, The Claudie Chronicles, and more recently, a book of criticism on the Harry Potter series entitled Mapping the World of Harry Potter, which is just a great book on various aspects of the books, including chapters like "Harry Potter and the Young Man's Mistake," "Neville Longbottom: The Hero with a Thousand Faces," "Harry Potter and the End of Religion," and "Why Killing Harry Potter Is the Worst Outcome for Voldemort."

Knowing a young person so intimately has changed my understanding of teaching writing. More than ever, the importance of authentic reasons for reading and writing are apparent to me. When a young person actually chooses to pick up a book on literary criticism, that just astonishes me! Just the fact that millions of young readers plough through Rowling's 800-page novels tells us something about the power of appealing to children's imaginations. And then, when they willingly, indeed fanatically, contribute to blogs on Harry Potter and his mates, visiting sites speculating on whether Dumbledore is really dead (see dumbledoresnotdead.com) by the millions, I know there's a hook there--in the mythology and in the psychology of the hero that they identify with so easily.

Have you had the opportunity to interact with and get to know young people in such a way that they've changed the way you see yourself teaching?