Melissa's Story

The SMC Education Department’s Common Read this year was George by Alex Gino. I had the pleasure of attending the author talk with Alex Gino on Monday, October 14th, where Alex gave information about their book, their perspective about writing the book, and insight into what it is like to be an author.

This is the picture of Alex from the posters on campus and I think it’s fantastic!

The structure of the talk was very conducive to conversation between Alex and the audience which I definitely appreciated. Alex gave the audience a brief introduction into their day so far, which consisted of speaking to students of varying ages about Melissa’s Story, what Alex would prefer George be called, and opened the conversation to questions from the audience.

One question I had before I listened to Alex’s author talk was about the meaning behind the title. I thought the story was fantastic and I loved reading about Melissa, however I just could not figure out why the title was George, Melissa’s deadname. Alex did a wonderful job explaining that initially they wanted the title to be Girl George, a reference to Boy George, who is a singer primarily famous in the 80s. During the editing process, which Alex notes moved remarkably quickly, they were approached to change the title of the novel to George because the young audience would not know who Boy George is. In the rush of publishing, Alex said yes and didn’t even think about what that could mean and the impossibility of changing a book’s title once it was published. I appreciate knowing that story because I can now refer to this novel as Melissa’s Story.

Alex Gino’s author talk clearly align with Standard 2 of the Vermont Licensure Portfolio, which states that “the teacher uses an understanding of individual differences and diverse cultures and communities to ensure inclusive learning environments that enable each learner to meet high standards”. PC 1 and PC 2, the building blocks of this standard, each require that candidates both have a working understanding of individual differences and diverse cultures and communities, and that candidates use that understanding to design inclusive learning experiences. Talking with Alex Gino and reading Melissa’s Story most certainly built upon the knowledge I had of individual differences and diverse cultures and communities. The experiences I have had in my life have led me to meet and learn about a wide spectrum of people, but this author talk took those people and encounters I had already had and put it into the context of working to build an inclusive education for my future students. In other words, the lens of the Education Department on an author talk featuring queer young adult literature helped me to shape the perspective I have about creating an inclusive learning environment in the future.

As I continue to get further into my education classes at Saint Mike’s, I am coming to have a fuller picture of who I am as a future educator. One idea that I consistently come back to is that I want my students to have windows and mirrors in my classroom. I want my students to feel like they can see into the perspective of someone else through a window, and I want my students to feel like they can see themselves in what they are learning like they would in a mirror. I understand my future educational career to be one replete with students who are at their cores unique individuals encompassing of a wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. This idea of educational equity is one that I want to incorporate in all of my educational practices, and I believe I have a better understanding of what that will look like now that I have heard Alex Gino speak.

I really liked listening to Alex speak to the experience of writing a novel about and for the trans youth. The author talk made it abundantly clear to me that Alex is dedicated not only to writing queer young adult literature, but queer young adult literature that is primarily positive. If a novel features a young queer person, it should not always be that young queer person being bullied or pushed around, there should be positive experiences that real queer youth can related to! As a future teacher I have been giving the thought of creating a bookshelf in my classroom for my students some thought over the past few years and I can say that before this talk I never thought about the positivity and negativity in a book choice before. I want the books that are on this shelf to incorporate multiple identities, and now I know that I also want those identities to be represented positively so my students have the idea of windows and mirrors reinforced in their potential book choices.