Irony or Coincidence? Tales from the DARK and TWISTY...

I am an English teacher. I love all things to do with words and symbols, commas and parallel structure. I believe in no censorship. I make my kids bookmarks that proclaim, "I read banned books."

I am dark and twisty.

But I am about to scream. This is TOO MUCH. So far this year in a curriculum and scope and sequence that I fell into and did not create, I have taught the following texts:

"Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl (an ironic story about a pregnant woman who kills her husband PATRICK with a frozen lamb leg when she finds out he is leaving her)

"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway (my literary love affair--a cryptic story about a couple who is making a decision about whether or not to have a baby)

"Popular Mechanics" (a story similar to the I Kings 3 story in the Bible about the prostitutes fighting over the one baby where King Solomon rules to let them cut the baby in half, thus revealing the selflessness of the true mother, thereby saving the baby... Unfortunately, this story does not end this way.)

And, today, to my AP kids an op-ed piece from the Washington Post titled "A Miscarriage of Propriety" (an article that criticized a misuse of social networking to flippantly tweet about a miscarriage)

Seriously.

I almost cried.

I reassured my kids that I love my husband, and I love my baby.

They asked me if we ever read anything "happy" in my class, and I stopped and thought to myself, no... Thanks, Willco.

I am an English teacher. I love all things to do with words and symbols, commas and parallel structure. I believe in no censorship. I make my kids bookmarks that proclaim, "I read banned books."

I am dark and twisty.

But I am about to scream. This is TOO MUCH. So far this year in a curriculum and scope and sequence that I fell into and did not create, I have taught the following texts:

"Lamb to the Slaughter" by Roald Dahl (an ironic story about a pregnant woman who kills her husband PATRICK with a frozen lamb leg when she finds out he is leaving her)

"Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway (my literary love affair--a cryptic story about a couple who is making a decision about whether or not to have a baby)

"Popular Mechanics" (a story similar to the I Kings 3 story in the Bible about the prostitutes fighting over the one baby where King Solomon rules to let them cut the baby in half, thus revealing the selflessness of the true mother, thereby saving the baby... Unfortunately, this story does not end this way.)

And, today, to my AP kids an op-ed piece from the Washington Post titled "A Miscarriage of Propriety" (an article that criticized a misuse of social networking to flippantly tweet about a miscarriage)

Seriously.

I almost cried.

I reassured my kids that I love my husband, and I love my baby.

They asked me if we ever read anything "happy" in my class, and I stopped and thought to myself, no... Thanks, Willco.