It’s all there in the title! My school had an opportunity to offer a two week immersion in rural India for a small group of students. I’ll be a chaperone but the long term goal is to work the trip into the curriculum of an academic course. It doesn’t have to be the English department, but that’s certainly on the table. I’m open to reading anything! Thanks!
by Deep_Knowledge_4194
4 Comments
Padma Venkatraman’s books are very good for teens, and they address a lot of the issues for young people in south India.
Most kids there watch Prime and Netflix. They are familiar with those shows. The teachers would be familiar with old BBC shows- Are you being served era or a bit later. I’m guessing you’re going on an exchange type of program so it will be to one of the boarding schools based on the British boarding schools. Rich kids mostly. Fluent in English and pop culture. I would watch a couple movies – Best Exotic Marigold Hotel type. Books a bit of old school Rudyard Kipling … Enid Blyton. It’ll be much easier than you expect.
I only know of Indian-American writers, but here’s some of their work:
– *World of Wonders* (Aimee Nezhukumatathil), an essay collection that braids the author’s personal experiences with the plants, animals, and weather patterns that mean something to her. One essay, titled “Monsoon” or “Monsoon Season” or something like that, details a trip she took to visit family members in India. There are also essays about things like microaggressions. For example, the author writes about axolotls and how they look like they’re smiling when they’re actually not, which she compares to a time when a middle school friend criticized her makeup choice as being wrong for her skin tone; the author smiled and agreed with the friend, even though smiling was the last thing she felt like doing. The essays began as bedtime stories Nezhukumatathil told her sons, and even though adults are supposed to be the target audience, I’d say the essays are probably written at about a sixth-grade reading level. Since the essays are self-contained, you could easily assign just one or two of them, if you didn’t want to assign the whole book.
– *Interpreter of Maladies* or *Unaccustomed Earth* (Jhumpa Lahiri), short story collections that are absolutely amazing. As far as I recall, all of the main characters are Indian or Indian-American, and most of the stories take place in the U.S, but in *IoM* (which won the Pulitzer, by the way!), the title story and “A Real Durwan” take place in India. Again, since these are collections of short works, you could easily assign just a story or two. Lahiri’s writing really is incredible, but you might have to screen the content for age-appropriateness.
Good luck, and bon voyage!
A fine balance
Midnights children
I just hope for the best. It is a very difficult place to travel as an adult let alone with a group of highschoolers.