3 December 2018: Almost a year ago to the day, I posted about teaching "Drown" and how I almost replaced it but was glad that I didn't. And a semester before that, I wrote a similar post. With all the controversy around Diaz, I really considered not only moving it so it wasn't the last new piece we discussed but even just dropping it from the syllabus
I didn't and today it was the last new piece we read for my ENGL 204 classes. I am still not sure if I should have included it or if I will include it again, but darn it, did it go well today. Playing it all over in my mind, I hear the voice of one student, who in his discussion of the unnamed narrator said, "It worked for me because this guy? I know three guys just like him." I love that connection: Diaz is writing about Dominican American men in New Jersey and this student is talking about white folks in the Eastern Panhandle of West Virginia. But there's a poignant, painful, and important connection there.
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