29 pages • 58 minutes read
Esmé Raji CodellA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Esme is twenty-four when she takes her first teaching job. Young and enthusiastic, her passion for storytelling, art and theater shine through in all her instructional efforts. Social justice is a concern for her. She is bothered by the consistently-lower expectations her students face simply because they are people of color. She is also bothered by the apparent sexism of the school principal and the condescending tone of board-approved “experts” hired to teach teachers what to do in their classrooms.
As a teacher, Esme creates her own rules, often giving students more power than her colleagues might. She puts them in charge of their reading groups and weekly peer mediation. She makes activities as participatory and tactile as possible, whether it is making a quilt comprised of state flowers, going into book time machines or staging fairy tales for younger grades.