“Puck? Where’s Puck? You need to pay attention Puck.” At Mrs. Conner’s behest, I sat up in my seat and began to read my lines, “How now spirit, whither wander you?” In our fifth grade Language Arts class’s production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I had been fittingly cast as the mischievous woodland elf named Robin Goodfellow, or Puck. At the front of the class stood the passionate and energetic Mrs. Conner. She directed all of us, meticulously deciphered each line, and brought Shakespeare’s works to life in front of our eyes. In sharp contrast to many of my teachers in elementary school who focused solely on ensuring that all their students passed the standardized tests at the end of the year, Mrs. Conner always took pride in …show more content…
Conner was incorporating acclaimed young adult novels into class activities. Like most of my classmates, I had already discovered the wonders of the fantasy and adventure genres. By third grade I was solving crimes with the Hardy Boys and by fourth grade I fancied myself the school’s preeminent Harry Potter scholar. Mrs. Conner recognized that even though many of us were reading above our reading level, we were not reading of books of significant literary merit. So, she set out to introduce us to books that would challenge us intellectually and force us to think about serious …show more content…
I found that Mrs. Conner had an affinity for books that had won the Newbery Award, so I read all the Newbery award winners in our school library. When she introduced us to a book about World War II, I became a World War II history enthusiast, and read about battle strategies and famous generals. The year culminated in a lengthy study of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, during which she had us construct costumes for each of the characters using colored butcher paper and markers. Our study of Shakespeare led me to check out a collection of some of Shakespeare’s notable works from the library (although after an ill-fated attempt to understand King Lear, I abandoned that