ABSTRACT
I call it the “Sunday Afternoon Shadow”—that feeling that slowly emerges in the back of my brain every Sunday afternoon around two o'clock. It begins with a vague awareness that the weekend is winding down and that within hours I'll once again be standing in front of my classes. Even after nineteen years in the classroom the Sunday Afternoon Shadow brings a hint of apprehension, particularly on the eve of any Monday when my students are to begin reading a difficult book. Thinking about how to approach the teaching of any new book raises some familiar questions: How do I plan to teach this unit? How and where can I, their teacher, intervene to help my students tackle this challenging work? What can I do to help them achieve deeper comprehension? Where do I begin on Monday morning? And where do I go from there?
