As part of the Facing Adversity and Being a Hero theme that we explore in Grade 10, I always have students do an Adversity of High School project, generally an essay in which they discuss how high schools are challenging places in a challenging time of their lives. We could have students write about our school.Īnd it hit me. One of the things Rachelle and I had discussed was how we could use Reynolds’ poems describing place, or the anagram poems in the book as mentor texts. In the opening weeks of the second semester, I found myself thinking of Long Way Down again. Then, the crazy month that is January, with semester’s end, new semester’s start, exams and all the other madness happened. There were specific poems we talked about, and how we could use them with our students. We knew that there was something in them we wanted to share with students, that they could be the catalyst for not only important conversations, but also, inspiration for some powerful writing experiences. Reynolds’ poems are beautiful, and powerful. When school fired back up after the break, Rachelle and I found time to talk. I got a couple of texts from her over the break, my copy of the book in Calgary coffee shops, with and excited, “We have to talk about this!” So, before the Christmas break, I handed it off to my coworker, Rachelle. It’s a powerhouse, and you really want to share it. If you’ve read it, I’m sure you reacted like I did, pretty much putting your life on hold so that you could finish it. I read his Miles Morales novel this winter, and when I saw it being lauded so strongly in my Twitter feed, I picked up a copy of Long Way Down. Though I read All American Boys a couple of years ago, I was weirdly late to the writing of Jason Reynolds.
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