High School Showcases

"Students respond well to The Alchemist.  It is an accessible read and includes a variety of symbolism and geographical references.  It is an intriguing study of cultural elements.  Students explore themes of goals, dreams, and synchronicity in these texts.  I provided a rating of 5/5 because the novel is beautifully written in a manner that students can understand and appreciate."

                                     - Chad Kendall, High School Vice Principal

"This book has great stories about the history behind different compounds, and then it gets into the science. I wouldn't read aloud to students as they are a bit long, but I would read the chapter myself and then summarize the story and retell it. It is great as a lesson starter."

   - Kelsey Nadeau, Grade 11 & 12 Teacher

"Fifth Business is a Canadian classic, written by the masterful Robertson Davies, and while the book reads as a novel, in form it is actually supposedly to be a handwritten letter from the main character, Dunstan Ramsay, who in anger and frustration has written the headmaster of his school to make a passionate defence of his life. Dunstan is deeply upset by a tribute speech delivered to him at the school upon the occasion of his retirement, a speech which he feels mocks the very things he feels most passionate about. The Greeks would call such a defence an “Apologia”, and while an apology is usually seen as a person’s attempt to express regret for a wrong committed by the individual, an apologia is more that of a person’s formal attempt to make clear the grounds for some belief or position.

What follows is an incredible story which involves everything from freaks, saints, magic, and devils—in essence, all the things that make up our everyday life as Canadians, but which we often (politely) dismiss as just the ordinary. On one level, the entire story is simply Dunstan’s attempt to rationalize his involvement over an unfortunate incident that occurred in his childhood with a woman named Mary Dempster; on a deeper level, however, Dunstan’s story is an illustration of how important it is to look beneath the surface of things to understand truth—and that an individual’s “true” identity can really only be understood by looking deep into his or her psyche.

I have used the book periodically within my English 30-1 classes—but as the novel is a very literary one, I will often save it for a group that I think is ready for it. It is filled with allusions, for one, and those often take some level of research to fully understand. Classes have responded differently to the novel, but as a generalization, I think most students can see its merits as a nod to the power of psychology and religion in people’s lives. For me, I love that the book shows the “bizarre and passionate” life of this character that lays concealed beneath his apparent dull personality—that of a doddering old schoolmaster.  Perhaps the author was also making a point about Canadians: that we might appear to be dull and ordinary and polite, but we also have an intense inner life that is exciting and vibrant beneath the surface of outward appearance.

Much of the book concerns themes related to identity. One highlight for the class is when I have each student over a weekend take home a list of names of their peers in class. They are challenged to write a note for each class member—something positive, that they see in this person, and that the individual him or herself may not think others notice. I compile all of these statements, and at the end of the unit, I give them as a bundle to each class member. There have been some really powerful teaching moments that have come out of that, and students are both quietly (and sometimes loudly) moved by all of their peers’ comments."

 - Marshall Cox, Grade 11 & 12 Teacher