The rain it raineth all the time

I find it interesting the ways in which kids get hooked into topics at school. My Year 12 students have been struggling to read a book which is an autobiography of a young black woman growing up in the South in the 30s and 40s. I've found it hard to get them interested and motivated, but there were 2 things that seemed to get some students hooked this week: 1. An allusion to the Bible, and the discussion that it generated. The allusion was about the needle giving because the camel cannot. It was in relation to a sexual assault, so was a disturbing metaphor/analogy. The discussion about what the Bible stands for as a text, and what connotations that has for the novel was fascinating, mostly for finding out what the students really don't know. 2. A comparison to the Fort Minor song Kenji, as there is a chapter where all the Japanese people are rounded up and put into internment camps. A few students were familiar with the song, and this helped them to put the novel into a context that they could understand. I think that helped them to be more enthused in general about the novel (even though the link is to only one chapter out of 36). So, I should strive to introduce kids to as many literary texts as possible, as well as make connections that they can understand, as they may not be able to make those connections by themselves. And I've got to somehow get them to actually read the book, from cover to cover. Right after I finish this massive pile of marking on my desk... Hmmm, looking at the title of the post and the tone that some of it could be read in, it would not be hard to beleive that I was not the jollyest man alive. I can't quite claim that status, but I am very happy, and content. The world is a goodly place, and I am a lucky man. Sometimes I feel like a good teacher too - sometimes quite by accident :)