Anne

My team and I spent time planning out our "Profiles of Courage" unit that we'll begin after spring break. It centers around Diary of a Young Girl, a text I've taught for the past couple of years, but in order to avoid shifting to cruise control on familiar lessons, I'm listening to an audio version of the work. This Definitive Version is narrated by Selma Blair with the gravelly voice of an honest adolescent, and I'm already hooked by Anne's tone that shows her catty, lonesome, confident, spunky self. She is a sister, a daughter, a student, and a friend. Familiar entries of her birthday party, ping-pong, or the flirty boys she expertly alludes by swerving her bicycle make her as real as any girl or boy in my class this year. And that is just what makes this piece one of the most powerful of the year.