Michelle Koza

Last week we had our second ever Chirp Café, sponsored by our literary magazine, The Beekman Chirp.

We all have stories. Sometimes we think that our stories are not valuable or interesting, but if our inaugural Chirp Café last week taught us anything, it’s that this just isn’t the case.

This post is part of a series inspired by Dream School: NYC, a SundanceTV docu-series that follows 15 New York City teenagers who left high school and are now trying to get back on track to gra

This post is part of a series inspired by Dream School: NYC, a SundanceTV docu-series that follows 15 New York City teenagers who left high school and are now trying to get back on track to gra

Plagiarism is one of those things kids know of, but are not sure about. They read something on the Internet and think, “Yes, that’s exactly what I want to say. This person said it better than I ever could,” and then they don’t know what to do.

Students created a class-wide project for Mythology in which we explored the connections between myth and the names of the celestial bodies in the solar system. “I learned that the planets and moons have a connection,” one student said.

When I was in the sixth grade, I wrote a long tirade to my grandmother complaining about my teacher’s terrible penchant for assigning too much homework. Now a teacher myself, I assign homework every day of the week, including weekends.

Why do we tell each other stories? For the English teacher, the similarities between fiction and our own lives are clear: both have protagonists and antagonists, characters, relationships, and conflicts. Like the novelist, we develop motifs and metaphors that color our experiences.

I had no expectation of teaching To Kill a Mockingbird this year. After all, The Beekman School is a high school, and most American students encounter Harper Lee's seminal work in middle school.