My Sister's Keeper

One of the things I love about teaching is the ability to learn from my students. I listen to them give a number of speeches over the course of a semester; informative speeches, persuasive ones and demonstration speeches. With every speech, I have the opportunity to learn something, or have a new door opened.

Last semester, one of my student’s gave a speech urging people to read the book, My Sister’s Keeper. This is a book about parents who have a young child who has leukemia. She needs a donor so the parents have another child (genetically altered) to be able to donate. The book takes place when the younger sister is 13 and has decided she no longer wants to donate body parts to her sister, who is currently in need of a kidney. She is suing her parents for medical emancipation.

Based on the speech, I decided to read the book over the summer and I have. When I grade student speeches, I look for certain things and unfortunately the grade is not based on how much I enjoy the speech. The speech did not meet some of the criteria for which I was looking but it certainly was persuasive as I read the book entirely based on that one speech.

Now I am going to find a way to work some of the information and story into my lesson plan next semester. I’m not sure how, but I will find a way. In the meantime, for those of you who have not read the book, I urge you to do so.