I am back in Tunis and less than two weeks away from 7th grade students in seats in my classroom. I have been reading as prolifically as I have been able: young adult novels (see blog posts), books about monotheism (World Perfect, A History of God, The Gifts of the Jews, Desire of the Everlasting Hills), books about history (Alexander the Great) and writing craft books to challenge my technique a little further (Writing a Life, The Power of Grammar). Now it is time to spin the thread. What will the overarching story be? What will be the Essential Questions and Enduring Understandings? What will I introduce first? How will I get the multiple balls of humanities into the air? What will students be doing?
Writing a Life, by Katherine Bomer, is the book coaching me on the first unit: Memoir. She writes with such passion about the genre and urges writers, me included, to press further than before in writing with honesty and reflection about the stories of their lives. I am grateful to have her by my side, right now.
She wrote that the earliest known autobiography is Confessions written by St. Augustine around the year 397. It so happens that just today I was being led on an Early Christianity tour here in Carthage and we went to the ruins of the St. Augustine basilica and discussed his notoriety in North Africa. I am going to use St. Augustine as the first thread tying together history and literacy. Here are a couple of quotes I captured:
“Tolle, lege: take up and read.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
“And men go abroad to admire the heights of mountains, the mighty waves of the sea, the broad tides of rivers, the compass of the ocean, and the circuits of the stars, yet pass over the mystery of themselves without a thought.”
― Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
| This painting looks like it could be the site of the basilica we visited today, a couple of thousand years ago |
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