THE MEASURE: Would AP English Students Look at Their Strings?

Confession: I would throw my unopened box into 

a large body of water. 

I am currently teaching The Measure by Nikki Erlick to both AP Lit and AP Lang. We received the books free from the community college connected to our dual-enrollment classes.  The novels are part of a great One Book, One Campus program, and DMACC gives copies to all instructors of DMACC English classes in the state. 

I'm no fool--it's very hard to get our school to buy full class sets of novels or nonfiction texts for 3-4 sections. So I snag these every year. This year's book, The Measure, is impressively current: published in 2022, it was likely written during the pandemic and absolutely has a "before and after" situation at its core. If you want a copy from the library, you'll still be on a waiting list (at least in DSM). It's definitely got that "book club " kind of appeal with an interesting premise and a variety of relationships to explore.

This is not a spoiler: Erlick's book opens with an explanation of how everyone in the world (22 and over) magically receives an unbreakable box with an unalterable  string inside it--all on the same night . The inscription says, "Inside is the measure of your life." Well, we quickly find out that the length of your string indicates WHEN  you will die (eventually the mathematicians can get it down to the exact month). From there, the text goes on to explore the experiences of 8 different "main" characters responding to their string's length (the knowledge of their approaching death).

I am using it with AP Lit, and they are reading the last 100 pages for next Wednesday. They have embraced it pretty well.  Some feared that after an opening two pages that disclose this phenomenon of the boxes ubiquitously and almost simultaneously appearing on everyone's doormat or outside their tent in the desert or in front of a homeless person's space, that it would be hard to top that reveal in the following 350 pages.  Like Kafkas' The Metamorphosis, it kind of seems to start with the climax. But most of the AP Lit kids stuck with it, and they've had great full-class discussions, small group discussions, and written responses--just ultimately pretty strong buy in. (Spoiler alert: the book includes profanity--lots of the "f" word. Two girls jumped ship early due to the profanity, and I'm guessing  their  disapproval of a central lesbian relationship. Boo! )

Now I have also started it with my AP Lang seniors, and we discussed the first 50 pages today. The discussion went well, and  though they didn't completely pan the book, many had disparaging comments: it felt a bit YA, a bit repetitive, and had far too many POVs (8 eventually). Because of all this, though they all appreciated the fantastic initial situation and the questions it provokes, most were not loving the novel.  I was surprised. 

We still had a good discussion, starting with, "Would you open your box?" (About half would and half wouldn't).  Interesting issues come up as everyone in the novel tries to solve the mystery of where the boxes came from and who could and how could anyone (or anything) KNOW this information for every human. The book gets a bit political: I think it definitely leans to the left though the kids agreed it is not an agenda text. 

The most interesting part to me is the quick prejudice that spreads concerning short stringers--though they initially evoke pity, eventually, after two public shootings by short stringers, they become a "dangerous" sector of society and ALL kinds of precautions, restrictions, and discrimination are well established by 6 months after the strings' arrival.

Along with prejudice, the book deals with everything from the intimately personal experience of death, and the privilege that comes with the mystery of our mortality, to the insidious political gain by a long stringer. 

Just as I'm allowing two kids in AP Lit read another novel, I'm letting two students in AP Lang read Take My Hand (also a DMACC free book from a prior year) instead of finishing The Measure. 

I'm giving a presentation on teaching this novel at the upcoming ICTE conference. (Here's hoping someone comes!) While I originally thought I would be shouting its praises as a classroom text and its impact on students, I think I will have to take a more nuanced approach.

What I think is that if you haven't read the book, it's worth the 350 page commitment!  And it's worth considering several of the philosophical questions naturally connected to Erlick's premise.

Again, I so would not open my box. For the most part, I hate mysteries and a lack of control, but my death? Like most people, I'll just continue to wait and occasionally wonder (grateful for my ignorance). 

YEAH: We get to go hear Erlick speak in November at the campus! 

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PERK: I have created materials--discussion questions, a quiz, and instructions for a final formal reader-response essay! You can message me here and I will send them to you! 

I am the master of their fate! Starting the year with "Invictus"

I kind of like the beginning of the school year because I kind of like beginnings in general. But the loss of summer is for real, and getting back into the full day plus 50-minute commute routine is tough. ( It's tough for all of us, I think, even if you can walk to the school.) I don't want to share a bunch of details about how meetings with poster paper and gallery walks and discussions about our WHY are also, once again, for real. We all know it. The TicTocs prove the strategies of professional development gurus are similar across the board.

However, I am on a district leadership committee and this summer we had to read FINDING YOUR WHY by Simon Sinek.  I probably would have enjoyed it more if its focus had been at all academic, if school had been mentioned, say, once. Of course, there's nothing wrong with trying to figure out the true reason we teach. But, at bottom, I'm guessing they're hoping we all basically have the same WHY. ("It's about the kids.")  The smaller whys are actually  more personally interesting. Why buy the same shirt from Amazon, just in another color? Why didn't I make a seating chart yet for my classes? 

A girl asked me a why question yesterday.  Each year out of the blocks I make my freshmen memorize either all of Henley's "Invictus" or at least the last stanza. I start with it on the first day. So, true to form, Monday on the back of their instructions for writing a letter to themselves on the first day of high school, I printed the entire poem. Instead of making it all the way through the syllabus or doing ANY kind of stressful (for me) bonding/community building activities, I spent twenty minutes on Henley's poem and forcing them to memorize the last stanza. They get points for it on Friday. I guess I am the master of their fate.

I get a kick out of hearing twenty-eight brand new freshmen losing themselves in a task--even if it's just committing something to memory or old-school recitation. It kind of works every year. I know that they will get 6 other periods of going over the syllabus and the rules and then maybe have some time for a community-building activity. Again, those are so good!!! Do them!!  

For the last few years at our faculty meetings we always had activities called "forced family fun."  I'd probably seem like an extrovert if you saw me teach, but don't we all? I dreaded going to meetings because I  was constantly anxious that we were going to have to play some stupid game and I'd be paired up with the guy from the industrial tech department (he literally rolled his eyes once when partnered with me) or another equally uncomfortable math teacher. I like everyone at my school, but I don't know them all well, and I'm OK with that.  I figure not everyone wants to know me...that well. Anyway, since I have had such awkward experiences with forced family fun the last four years, I decided that even though I know there is probably research that says getting a writing class to bond is critical to creating that safe environment where they can share their personal feelings, I'm still not going to do it.  If you do---that's great!  I can't disparage anyone for pushing through an activity that produces the beginning of relationships and is probably fun for the kids. 

Not for me. Not the first day at least. 

So we memorize the last stanza of "Invictus" instead. We finished class a little early seventh period (I wish this had not been the case.)  All the brand spanking new high school freshmen were both tired and restless, and for the most part, could recite Henley's last four lines.  While most of the class was milling around watching the construction out the window or pushing each other and laughing, three girls came up to my desk and started shooting the breeze.  Because I am awkward, I kept it pretty basic:  "So, how was your first day? Did you have a system for phone collection? Did you get "Invictus" memorized?"  They thought so.  Then one blonde freshmen said, "Why are we doing that?"  I said, :"What? Memorizing "Invictus?"  (That was it.) So I bumbled around and finally landed on "Enrichment!" with a flourish. They shook their heads like, "Ok, then."  Was that a good enough WHY?  It got me through the moment.  Technically, this activity, instead of bonding while saying two truths and a lie, gives them something to go home and show off that they learned, if there is someone who asks. 

I do not assume my 80 freshmen went home to charming sit-down dinners where they answered parents' eager questions about their first day of school. But maybe the question came up---"did you learn anything?" I can't very successfully give them an activity where we keep a beach ball up in the air or hold hands to see that energy connects all of us. But I can give them 4 cool lines of poetry,  of which I hope they remember the last two lines forever: "I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul." 

So, if you didn't have a wacky English teacher who made you memorize "Invictus" by Henley, there it is below. It means "unconquerable"--one freshman said, "invincible" which I gave him props for and he received a fist bump from a friend.  Another freshman said they write the curriculum for Harvard (I had Harvard on the board connected to AP Lang Common Apps). That kid made me laugh out loud. Here's to the beginning of the year, here's to however you start it, here's to freshmen, and also to being the  master of your own fate any time you need to be.

INVICTUS by William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods my be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance,

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the horror of the shade.

And yet, the menace of the year

Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate

How charged with punishments the scroll.

I am the master of my fate.

I am the captain of my soul.