Discovering commonality across time and geography.

It’s important to highlight the relevance of literary texts to the modern world, as well as the universality of their themes.

I designed a lesson based on Sri Lankan Canadian author Michael Ondaatje’s collection of stories Running in the Family. These stories illustrate how places of the past are inaccessible to many migrant people, who leave behind their homelands and communities. As an English teacher in Toronto, a multicultural city, I knew many of my students were immigrants who could relate to these feelings. At the same time, an emotional connection to geographical places is also universal, and all students could reflect on their relationships with places special to them.