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• How to Have Meaningful Literature Discussions (Even When Students Aren’t Reading)

by Leigh Anne Eck, George Rogers Clark Middle School

Paul Hankins has been teaching English 11 since 2004 and AP English Language and Composition for over a decade now (adding dual credit to this piece within the past few years). 

How and when did you know you wanted to become an English teacher? "My English teachers were among the most supportive in the classroom of my latent talents and passive resistance to the work. I had a number of influences while I was in high school who helped me to shape the fuzzy vision of the teacher I didn't know I wanted (or could be). I think I knew I wanted to be an English teacher. . .or a teacher, when I sat down and reflected upon these early influences upon my life, quietly tapping into those talents that were trying to express themselves."

How would your students describe you? "I hope that they would describe me as one who knows his content area, but they may not know this language as descriptive of their teachers. They would probably say I read a lot and present characters with different voices. They would probably say my room looks different from the others they might sit in." 

How would you describe your teaching career in one sentence? "I might sum this up in a sort of six-word memoir style:  He kept learning as he went." 

You believe in bringing art to the English language arts classroom. Why is this important to you and/or your students? "I think that a multi-sensory approach is the way to deliver information and to bring that information back. If we are presenting from our art as teachers, we might invite the same expression of art in student response. There is a new, but not-so-new, interest in multimodal composition and I am excited that some of this can be brought out in collage, in memes, in visual representations like infographics. The means by which we bring our response to ideas and stories can be wide open to artistic expression." 

To read Leigh Anne's full interview with Paul, visit our website.