This month on Ethical ELA I am featuring the reading lives of my teacher-friends to inspire us to read more in 2018 (and for some great book recommendations). Last week, we heard from Brian Kissel, and this week we welcome my dear friend, professor, and mentor David Schaafsma, Professor of English and Director of English Education. I first met Dave in 2001 when I resigned from my job as a social worker to pursue a teaching degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago. He helped me develop my voice and practice as a social justice educator. And when I was close to resigning from my job as a teacher in 2010, Dave welcomed me back to UIC to pursue a doctorate degree and write my first book. I am forever grateful to Dave for helping me find my way back to the work of being and becoming a teacher and introducing me to the art and therapy of narrative inquiry. Please welcome David Schaafsma.
You might wonder what your reading life will be when you turn 65. If you have kids, they are long out of the house, you are retired. Sure you have liked reading YA lit and teaching Macbeth with your students, but hey, you can now read anything you want! Though my AARP shares the dismal news that teens read far more than oldsters, that the average reading for those in years 65+ is ONE book a year, sigh. So I think I may be “off the grid,” as they say, having turned 65 myself a couple days ago. I have five kids, two somewhat older ones, 21 and 18, with disabilities, who visit on weekends, and three who are 10, 11 and 13.
I also (continue to) direct the Program in English Education, teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, and I also teach the YAL and Graphic Novels classes here. I try to stay fresh with those courses; this past fall I taught my YA class with a focus on romance, which historically has not been any area I read in (I got ideas by asking former students, current English teachers, for suggested readings, so all those books were first time reads) I am still very much enjoying teaching (Not nodding off in class yet! Not teaching from yellowed legal pads!) and I have all these kids, so I am electing to teach (at this point, since I am still healthy, running, taking no medications, knock wood) for at least five more years.
I am lucky in that I seem to have the same energy and commitment and passion for reading that I have always had. I am lucky in that the kids in this house all love to read, so there are hours of quiet. I also wake early and stay up late to read and write. And it’s true I have only 50 college students versus the 150 public school students I once had, but I also serve on several MA thesis and dissertation committees, and I am still writing. But I have always made time to read, many years involved in active book clubs, but mostly reading (besides class texts, of course), largely alone.
Maybe most importantly, several years ago I joined Goodreads, which has helped my personal reading in several ways:
1) I wanted an app—like a running app, which I also use—to track my reading, and encourage me to read even more, and more widely, and that worked. I get lots of great reading ideas from my Goodreads friends and so my To Be Read pile expands exponentially;
2) I read YA, picture books, literary fiction, mysteries, poetry, graphic novels, climate change books, and so on, all now categorized, and try to read a range of books all the time;
3) I also read so much that my memory for the plot/themes for some (okay, many?) books is pretty hazy, so I elected two or three years ago to review (and quickly, I have a family and a full time job, remember) EVERY book that I read, just to see if I could do it; and
4) I confess I realize I am aging, and though I sometimes keep a journal, it is hit or miss, so I began to think of my reviews as a kind of reading autobiography to leave my kids and grand kids, if they are interested. Sweet, yes?
I note that these days I am reading fewer “professional” books such as I have actually written; that’s interesting to me. I am still active at NCTE/CEE, but I feel myself (though teaching a grad course on the teaching of writing this spring co-taught and largely planned by a couple graduate students/ good friends) sliding steadily out of my profession. But I am working on a couple books (one a collection of Growing up Stories, one a novel about fathers and brothers), so I read for the purpose of informing those projects. I read books on autism because of my sons, I read dystopian books now because 45.
Here is my 2017 yearly reading report, in case you are in interested, posted (also) on Goodreads:
The Year That Was: 2017
I had a truly amazing/crazy year in reading, with my usual comics reading, peppered by my usual dozens of picture books and YA. One goal I had was to read or reread some classic texts, which got met when, early in the year, I was suffering from eye strain and my ophthalmologist suggested I try some audiobooks. This led me to read a lot of noir detective books, initially, and read/reread some series: Philip Roth’s Nathan Zuckerman series; Camus’ “trilogy,” (The Stranger, The Plague and The Fall); Graham Greene’s “Roman Catholic” “trilogy” (The Heart of the Matter, The Power and the Glory, and The End of the Affair), and I finally finished a 2-3 year stint of powering through the (39) Hercules Poirot novels of Agatha Christie. My goal in the coming year is to read less and write more. I want to read less conventional books and comics and reconnect to more experimental interests. I want to read more poetry. I read or reread a bunch of environmental books, and I want to read more this coming year.
Fave Graphic Novels
1. My Favorite Thing is Monsters, Emil Ferris
2. Roughneck, Jeff Lemire
3. Providence, Alan Moore
4. The Hunting Accident, David Carlson
5. Sunburning, Keiler Roberts
6. The Park Bench, Chaboute (and Alone)
7. Otherworld Barbara, Volume One Moto Hagio
8. Fante Bukowski Two Noah Van Sciver
9. Paradise Lost, Pablo Auladell
10. The Customer is Always Wrong, Mimi Pond
11. You & A Bike & A Road, Eleanor Davis
12. Sex Fantasy, Sophia Foster-Dimino
13. Yours, Sarah Ferrick
14. Everything is Flammable, Gabrielle Bell
15. Pretending is Lying, Dominique Goblet
16. Architecture of an Atom, Juliacks
17. Anne of Green Gables, Mariah Marsden, Brenna Thummler
Fave Comics Series, in no particular order (okay, absolute faves starred):
1. Saga, Brian Vaughn **
2. Royal City, Jell Lemire **
3. Dept H, Matt Kindt **
4. The Vision, Tom King
5. My Brother’s Husband, Gengoroh Tagame
6. Nameless City, Faith Erin Hicks
7. Grasslands, Matt Kindt
8. Giant Days, John Allison
9. Kill or Be Killed, Ed Brubaker **
10. Harrow County, Cullen Bunn
11. Velvet, Ed Brubaker **
12. Papergirls, Brian Vaughn
13. Sheriff of Babylon, Tom King
14. Southern Bastards, Jason Aaron **
15. Black Hammer, Jeff Lemire
I also loved finally reading The Preacher series from Garth Ennis
My fave Nathan Zuckermans: American Pastoral, The Human Stain, The Counterlife, The Ghost Writer
My favorite dystopians/anti-fascist books reread since 45 took office: The Plot Against America, Roth; It Can’t Happen Here, Sinclair Lewis; Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury; The Resistible Rise of Arturo Ui
Favorite Christies: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Peril at End House, Murder on the Orient Express, Curtain, Witness for the Prosecution, And Then There Were None
Great first novel: Itche and Ari, Dov Zeller (soon to be retitled The Right Thing to Do at the Time!)
Great short story collection: The Water Museum, Luis Urrea (I also reread Carver and Hemingway story collections this year)
Two great award-winners: Dora Bruder, Patrick Modiano; Just Kids, Patti Smith
Fave rereads: Dandelion Wine; Cat’s Cradle; Dubliners; The Power and the Glory; The End of the Affair; The Plague; Jane Eyre; Bukowski’s Post Office and Ham on Rye;
Fave Picturebooks:
Lines, Suzy Lee
Little Fox in the Forest, Stephanie Graegin
A Different Pond, Bao Phi
Audubon, On The Wings Of The World, Fabien Grolleau
Steamboat School, Deborah Hopkinson
Creekfinding: A True Story, Jacqueline Briggs Martin
Glenn Gould: A Life Off Tempo, Sandrine Revel
Over and Under the Pond, Kate Messner
The Book of Mistakes, Corinna Luyken
Wolf in the Snow, Matthew Cordell
Best Poetry:
Daughters of Emptiness: Poems of Chinese Buddhist Nuns
Vivas to Those Who Have Failed: Poems, Martin Espada
Shirt in Heaven, Jean Valentine
Olio, Tyemba Jess
I Am the Beggar of the World: Landays from Contemporary Afghanistan
Best YA:
Neighborhood Girls, Jessie Ann Foley;
The Hate U Give, Angie Thomas;
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson (ok, not this year published, and maybe technically not YA, to some, but for me it is)
Best noir of the year for me:
Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice, James Cain;
The Grifters and The Killer Inside Me, Jim Thompson
Environmental books: Sense of Wonder and Silent Spring, Rachel Carson; Six Degrees: Our Future on a Hotter Planet, Mark Lynas
David Schaafsma is a Professor of English at the University of Illinois at Chicago where he directs the Program in English Education. He teaches courses in English teaching methods, graphic novels and young adult literature. He’s the author of five books, and is a former editor of the journal English Education. He’s published numerous articles on community-based literacy, but also increasingly increasingly writes fiction and poetry. He’s the father of five children, and has five siblings living in three states. He lives in Oak Park just outside Chicago. He as rated 5744 books on Goodreads!@DavidSchaafsma1
