Worthy of a Read Aloud

I'm Southern to a fault. Born and raised in South Carolina and will probably die here too. My state has a lot to offer me--the mountains AND the beach and some of the greatest barrier islands in the world. South Carolina also has Pat Conroy.

Conroy has lived all over the world and had 22 addresses before he found himself in Beaufort, SC. But he, like I, is proud to call South Carolina home. I, however, haven't lived all over the world. I haven't even really lived all over the state. But that is neither here-nor-there.

In my quest to use read-alouds with my students, especially with my freshmen, I am constantly racking my shelves at home and at school for interesting texts to share with them. In my attempt to use the textbook that we are paying a small nation's yearly budget for, I have started a unit on author's purpose. To relate to Jamaica Kincaid's "Island Morning," I pulled out The Pat Conroy Cookbook. It was good to identify the purpose of cookbooks, but also to look at what Conroy did with a cookbook. Just by sharing the first two pages of chapter 4, "A Home in the Lowcountry," I was able to think-aloud a few inferences, identify a different perspective of author's purpose, and share some amazingly beautiful writing. His comparisons between the salt creeks and a woman are amazing, and yet also amazingly simple. They got it. They may have missed most of the beauty in the writing, but one student said, Hey, that's a simile. Yeah, it is, kid. Yeah, it is.

So through a beautiful read-aloud from a cookbook I already had at home, my freshmen were exposed to what words can be when coming from the right brain. They were exposed to an author that I am positive they had not considered before. While they may not be rushing out to check out The Prince of Tides or Great Santini, I've exposed them to something that I think is great. And they'll see that piece again. It is so rife with imagery, metaphor, personification, and eloquence that there is plenty to learn from it.

So learn from it we shall.