"All this happened, more or less."

This review contains a few spoilers, but not many more than you will find by reading the book's cover. This book is about the journey, and I have not ruined that for you here. When I first finished reading Yaa Gyasi’s debut novel Homegoing , I immediately registered the feeling of frustration that occurs when the story you’re reading isn’t neatly wrapped up with all loose ends resolved. As I often do when I feel this way, I flipped back a couple of pages and read them again to see if I missed something.   On another level, however, I knew that I hadn’t missed a thing. I got what really mattered because, of course, Gyasi engineered it that way. The motifs of fire and water meet on native soil. Light skin and dark are reunited. Two paths that diverged – one through slavery and post-Civil War inequity in America and the other through the tribal tribulations and colonialism of Africa – cross again. However, I wanted a moment when Maame’s descendants, from Effia’s and Esi’s bra...

In May, 2016, as I walked around my classroom to listen to the discourse among my students and provide inspiration, clarification, and feedback where necessary, one of my students caught me off guard by asking perhaps the scariest question a teacher can hear: “Can I ask you a personal question?” As a proponent of a strong, safe classroom community, I share a good portion of my personal story with my students so that they feel empowered and safe to share theirs, but I always reserve the right to know when not to share. There are some areas of our lives that are sacred and not up for discussion with students. As such, I responded that she might ask, but I had the right not to answer. I always smile when I say this because, generally, the questions are innocuous, and I end up answering anyway. But not this time. “Who are you voting for for president?” Without hesitation, I answered with one of my mantras: “It is my job to teach you how to think – not what to think.” My stude...

Recently, I saw a post about a photographer who traveled the country – specifically, the “rust belt,” in order to capture images of derelict shopping malls. I could not find the original article, but another that contains similar photographs can be found here: https://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/completely-surreal-pictures-of-americas-abandoned-malls?utm_term=.stBvqP3dRD#.yoeQm0lxMn The haunting images stayed with me not just because of the macabre nature of abandoned places but also because of what malls once meant. They were more than mere concentrated areas in which to spend money, although in the 1980s, the focus on shopping and materialism was fairly intense. They were also places to socialize. We met our friends at the mall, made new friends at the mall, people-watched at the mall, had deep conversations at the mall, and through all of this, we learned about ourselves at the mall. Let’s look at some movies from the 1980s-1990s set at least partially at a shopping mall to ga...