Bob Cooley

I teach literature and classics; one of my courses is Ancient Epic. The kids read The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Odyssey, The Iliad, and The Aeneid. It’s exciting to see them read 45,000 lines of ancient poetry and work through all the complexities and challenges. The kids love it. They’re proud of themselves when they finish reading these books because they know they’ve taken on some great stuff. They also come to understand that great literature is universal; one kid described The Odyssey as “a love story.” The students do projects during the course: one did a project on the Korean heroic tradition; another took us to the NMH observatory and told myths about the constellations. At the end of the course, we reflect on a quote of mine: “Myth is truer than history.” We talk about how myth tells us great stories unshaped by historical bias.

 

I also love teaching American literature. Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved is the core of my American lit class. It’s a very difficult, challenging narrative. She changes time in mid-sentence, and the characters are all trying to hide from us. People have said, “You can’t possibly teach this to high school kids.” My students say, “Adults are always underestimating us.” In the book, the main character, Sethe, tries to kill all her children when slave catchers come to get her. She manages to kill one child. One of my students had recently lost her father to a sudden heart attack, and she said, “If Sethe can survive what she went through, so  can I.” I’ll never forget that. My students have taught me that reading literature is not just an academic exercise.