Mentors all the way through are so important - thanks for sharing your father's advice!
HS English teacher here - about a decade ago, had a lightbulb/humility moment. All of us who teach or have taught The Great Gatsby teach or have taught a book built around advice from a father. Fitzgerald chose that frame, and so much of my approach to that book had been overshadowed by pressures to cover larger themes, or other writing style choices, or just other components.
But that book, reading it as a book about advice, seeing others, following the unspoken and spoken choices of people around you - same age, older age, younger age - came to mind reading this excellent post. Thank you.
Mentors all the way through are so important - thanks for sharing your father's advice!
HS English teacher here - about a decade ago, had a lightbulb/humility moment. All of us who teach or have taught The Great Gatsby teach or have taught a book built around advice from a father. Fitzgerald chose that frame, and so much of my approach to that book had been overshadowed by pressures to cover larger themes, or other writing style choices, or just other components.
But that book, reading it as a book about advice, seeing others, following the unspoken and spoken choices of people around you - same age, older age, younger age - came to mind reading this excellent post. Thank you.