Best Kept Secret

Erin Ott, a double Hofstra graduate (B.A. and M.A.) and a member of Walker’s English and the Middle School faculty, discusses girls as learners, what it means to develop voice, Walker’s Capabilities Approach, and things that go bump in the night.

How do you prepare to teach each term?

I read as much as I can. That’s one of the nice things about being an English teacher. I will pore through books I’m thinking of assigning as well as the books written by our upcoming or potential Visiting Writers in any given year. This particular year I’m teaching a short story course and so I’m consuming a lot of short fiction, including Never Whistle at Night, a recently released anthology of Indigenous dark fiction. 

What’s your goal for English at the Middle School level?

My ultimate goal is to inspire in the girls a love of reading. I noticed early in my time with 8th graders that they still read for fun, but somewhere after that they lose the habit. My goal is to help them maintain that habit, so we do 10 minutes of free-reading — whatever they want to read — at the beginning of each class. Students often report this as their favorite part of the class, and it is consistently noted as one of the things I should “keep” in my end-of-year surveys.

I also want to engage my Middle School students in the works of our Visiting Writer. This series provides a distinctive opportunity for the girls to both read and interpret works by a writer and then engage with that writer in person when they are on campus. Literature is alive — a living, breathing organism that exists as part of our cultural canon. It’s not a dead art, and our Visiting Writer series is a case in point.

How do you create an environment in your courses that allows girls to find their voices?

Girls are relational. They are more willing to engage and share their perspectives — even while they are forming them — when they have developed ties with their faculty and peers. This is why Walker’s — which is a community based on mutual trust — provides the context in which girls can safely develop and explore voice. I encourage them to write in a variety of low-risk ways that allow them to play with voice without worrying about having to sound “academic.”  This in turn leads them to become stronger writers because they are capable of clear, strong academic writing when they focus on what they are actually trying to say, rather than trying to guess what I want to hear.

How do your courses build on Walker’s Capabilities Approach?

Walker’s Capabilities Approach — which is really Walker’s whole philosophy of teaching and learning — is all about helping girls develop into capable, independent, and confident people through their academic, co-curricular, and social pursuits at Walker’s. For my part, developing voice — alongside close readings and analysis — is the most important piece of work that they do in my courses. This is different from assuming a voice that is disengaged, formal, and overly-complex: the academic voice that many students learn. There is a way to develop a voice that is clear and concise, while being rooted in the personal. From that vantage point, a student can make a compelling argument that forms a bridge with the reader.   

How did you first come to Walker’s?

I first arrived at Walker’s to teach a course that was open when another faculty member was on maternity leave. I had so many misconceptions about an all-girls environment, which led me to believe that I wouldn’t want to stay. I quickly realized, however, that Walker’s is an amazingly warm and welcoming environment for our girls and for all community members. That’s one of the reasons that one of my students said Walker’s is Connecticut’s “best kept secret” — it’s a place that lets girls grow to be comfortable in their skin. Once I realized this about Walker’s, I threw my hat in the ring to take on any role that needed filling. Fortunately, a position in the Middle School and in the English Department opened up.

What has been your favorite course at Walker’s?

I really enjoyed teaching Literary Horror as I am a horror fiction fan myself. Horror helps us to understand difficult life events we may encounter in the real world, while providing a prism through which to grapple with the situations. We started with classics in the genre: Edgar Allan Poe and Shirley Jackson. The girls were repelled when we read Ira Levin’s The Stepford Wives, not surprisingly, as this is a bone-chilling piece of dystopian fiction. One of the interesting parts of teaching that text was that we have curated an environment for our students that values independence and the female voice so highly that it was hard for them to even imagine living in a “Stepford.”

What is your favorite piece of fiction?

If I had to choose, it would almost always be one of the books that I am currently reading. Right now that’s Never Whistle at Night or Florida by Lauren Groff, both of which I’ll teach in my Short Story course this fall. I also love any work by Annie Proulx, Fledgling by Octavia Butler, and my all-time favorite, It by Stephen King.