The Books I Have Taught: The Most Dangerous Game

The Books I Have Taught series is a personal reflection on the books I have taught in my classes. Their experiences often reveal interesting truths, not about the themes necessarily, but more about the outcomes and interactions I had with my students and the various paths it led me down. I hope you enjoy my reflection on the books that I have taught.

The plight of many English teachers is to have engaging texts for their students while a large majority of their students have very low reading stamina. For my 9/10s I used two short stories in class, the first that I will discuss is The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell. The good thing about old texts is that you can find free versions of them, with resources attached, which you can disperse to your students both easily and for free. The text itself explores man's brutal nature and is clear that my students grasped it quite easily. The assessment was a textual intervention, an activity I encountered at university, where a person changes an aspect of the original text to change the meaning. My students were tasked with going to a chosen point within the text and then change what happens, seeing where that leads the story. These what if kind of moments are a regular occurrence in my writing, especially during the editing phase. I am always asking what could be done differently, how could I improve the story, make a point clearer, develop a character further all while still making logical sense. Textual interventions are a fun exercise for the creative writers in the class, not the analytical ones who groan every time I introduce a creative task. They would much rather analyse than create, study not explore. I used to struggle at first, trying to give them passion for an activity that I like but they didn’t, to engage in writing that I find natural and again, they didn’t, though, that is part of my role as a teacher. I have learned ways to overcome it and to accept reality. These students do not want to be creative, but they want good grades and that is enough of a motivator. I have also learnt to be prepared with examples and to jump on any idea they have to push them in the right direction, or a direction, really, as long as they are walking a path I do not mind how cliché or boring it might be. I have read some stories from my students that I see the clear line it should go but I always stop myself from finishing that thought. It is a dangerous game to play, rewriting student work is plagiarism. Even if I feel there is so much potential in their idea, it is still their idea and they have every creative right to butcher it. I once had a conversation with a person from my university class about her idea for an expanded universe. I began excitedly telling her what I would do with her world. She became very upset and she had every right to, it was her world and I forgot that. In the same regard, my students have created their stories and they belong to them, even if they never do anything with it, it is still theirs. This makes me reflect on the worlds and stories that I have created, or began to create or completely forgot about. They are still mine and at some point, they may come back into my focus, but even if they don’t, they are still mine.

I would teach The Most Dangerous Game again; short texts are great for low stamina readers and any story where a person is being hunted to be killed like a common animal tends to interest high school students. Maybe because they can relate to the feeling of being trapped somewhere they wish they weren’t or understand the feeling of being hunted by an older adult, though in their case it is for the work they were meant to submit not for sport.