Breathing - Teachable Moments in Literature

I recently wrote about not wanting to stop my reading for pleasure to take note of teaching points and the idea of having some of my favorite authors in mind to skim again for certain areas. I just thought of another way as well - I will start doing teachable moments in literature posts for books that really stand out to me with endless possibilities. I will kick off the concept with Cheryl Renée Herbsman's Breathing.

Right away I noticed main character Savannah's southern dialect in narration. When I went on exchange to University of Rhode Island my junior year in college for a semester, one of my professor's there sparked my interest in dialects. He told us about how linguists view all dialects as equal, but people often judge others based on how closely their language aligns with Standard American English. Since then, I have loved the area and most of my remaining major undergraduate projects and my Master's literature review all revolved around the area and the balance between having students see value in their dialect, while also preparing them to be successful. Breathing is an opportunity to both show how the use of dialect brings the book alive, as well as discussing academic vs. social voice in writing. Students will be able to see the advantage of understanding when it is appropriate to use their various registers and seamlessly move from one to the other depending on the purpose of their writing.

The book is also one more great example of using personal experiences to inspire fictional writing. Although I do not know how much of Herbsman's real life crossed over into the book, there is a cute picture of her and her husband as teenagers on the beach when they were dating. It also mentioned that they carried on a long-distance relationship as the two characters in the book.

When talking to students about adjusting their reading to match their purpose, this excerpt will be perfect:

In the summertime I generally like to read trashy books. [...] I never read that stuff during the year, but come summer, I can't help myself. For school I'm always having to get through the likes of David Copperfield or Romeo and Juliet, books where the English is so thick you've got to go over every paragraph six times before you understand what it is they're aiming to say. By the time summer comes around, my brain needs a rest (14-15)

It is also a great dialogue opener into enjoying books from different levels of difficulty and choosing books based on the match up between the level of support needed and the support available.

There is also a fun description of how Savannah and her brother Dog got their names. This will be perfect for Aimee Buckner's idea of History of a Name as part of launching a writer's notebook that she mentions in her Notebook Know-How: Strategies for the Writer's Notebook (15). I will use it along with an excerpt from The House on Mango Street.

One final lucky find was that Herbsman has a blog, and I just saw a post where she gives insights into her conversation about dialogue at her teen writing class.