I am often asked how I work with students when reading controversial texts. The controversy, for me, isn’t whether the book is on this year’s list of “most challenged books,” it’s how to create a personal connection between the events in the book and the students’ personal lives.

My biggest challenge is to teach the process of digesting information about a topic in a way that creates empathy, compassion, understanding, and validation for having the emotional experience that comes from reading a story that is viscerally upsetting.

I wander the halls during a few random prep periods each week (instead of grading…) so I can pop into a classroom, sit in the back and listen to master teachers at work. I try to listen as a student, not as a teacher, so I can walk a mile in their shoes and really ‘get’ what the teacher is striving for in…