Dystopian society is the focus of a current English 1 assignment with students reading Ray Bradbury‘s Fahrenheit 451.

“There’s a significant relevance to today’s world,” English teacher Vanessa Melvin said. “It would be easy to make connections from the book to today’s society. We also tried to pair some relevant quick passages to help deepen our students’ understanding of key concepts in the text.”

Each class read the book together and then had to use a planning sheet to help them set up students’ essays

“I personally manage my time horribly and cram everything I can into the last day,” freshman Ace Jackson said. “It’s worked so far so I won’t stop anytime soon.”

Although most of the students did not like writing the essay, most students liked having a peaceful day of reading.

“Well of course I dislike writing an essay on it, I don’t know a single person who likes to write  but I like reading books during class,” Jackson said. “Spending an English day reading is pretty nice.”

Whatever they are reading, it all goes to getting ready for the English STAAR on Tuesday. 

“Any books that we have read this year should come in handy for the STAAR essay portion,” Melvin said.“The state likes to see kids utilize what they have read and what they know about the world rather than just writing generic, low-level responses.”

Looking beyond the STAAR exam, one of Melvin’s goals is to help her students become stronger writers. 

“What happens when a college professor gets their first paper and it’s garbage because they don’t really have writing skills,” Melvin said. “I talk to my professors now and again and they say that writing skills have seriously declined over the years. I also don’t want to be that teacher that didn’t teach them how to be successful. I’d rather them “hate me now” and appreciate me later.”