Talking texts with teachers #6

An interview with Isabella Turnbull from Prahran High School about the best (and worst) texts she's taught, and trying to find a spot in the curriculum for more poetry.

Isabella Turnbull is an English and literature teacher at Prahran High School currently on maternity leave, reading books mostly about cheeky animals. 

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What is the best text you've ever taught, and why?

I've loved so many! Davina Bell's The End of the World is Bigger than Love represented for me a shift in how I taught, to be far more student-led. The book itself is beautiful: a feminine, paranoid, magic realism dystopia, and I was able to teach it to a small group of students that had elected it to study. They asked questions each week and we explored the themes through those questions. The prose is also completely hooking and I would really recommend it to those who love Philip K. Dick but are frustrated by the misogyny. 

What is the worst?