Author: srutisriram

In 2019, my first blog post here was about approaching language diversity in my English language classroom. I mentioned briefly that my school required English use in all contexts during the school day (from bus to lunch to the classroom), with the exception of the Hindi classroom. Fast forward five years – my role had… Continue reading softening the edges of a school-wide language policy →

As an English teacher, I dove into blogs and books that decried “school genres.” Stacey Shubitz, Nancie Atwell, and others wanted students to write real pieces of writing: according to them, students could be poets, novelists, essayists, and reviewers, not just apprentices of the five-paragraph essay or book report. As I transitioned from teaching English… Continue reading a tool for high school researchers →

I co-wrote this piece with my colleague and friend Sana. We discuss our experiences and learnings leading a series of professional learning experiences around language during the pandemic. Find Sana at https://www.linkedin.com/in/sana-sohoni. In adapting to classroom instruction during the pandemic, each of us was aiming to bring the most important elements - perhaps joy, trust… Continue reading The language of success: using one pandemic inequity as an opportunity for community and learning →

I was raised in an upper middle-class house. By the time that I was in high school, my family had bought and renovated a large house in one of the country’s most affluent suburbs. I went to an extremely expensive and elite private school (that, to its credit, changed my life) because my parents’ work… Continue reading let’s talk about privilege →

This essay was also published in Feminism in India here. Thousands of women were caught on the ‘wrong’ side of the border separating Pakistani West Punjab and Indian East Punjab. Women such as Piara, Parmeshwari, and Peshawari were listed in long tables counting abducted persons. Others, such as Sudarshana, Ismat, and Zainab were found in… Continue reading Sudarshana’s escape and Veera’s return: two stories of Partition’s abducted women →

When I stepped into my Pune apartment, I wasn’t just hit by the dust, bugs, and general mayhem. I was also struck with an almost reminiscent loneliness. I didn’t have reason to be lonely, really – I’d just spent most of 2020 in D.C. with my parents, whom I genuinely enjoyed living with as an… Continue reading pest control: a memoir →

This is the third post in a blog series attempting to explore the key premises that guided my choices while teaching literature and the resulting consequences for my classroom. Three: Students need to practice being literary critics themselves. Ultimately, students sitting for the Cambridge A Levels will need to take a stance on a text… Continue reading exploring literature instruction in my classroom, part 3 →

This is the second post in a blog series attempting to explore the key premises that guided my choices while teaching literature and the resulting consequences for my classroom. Two: There is no value in having an unsubstantiated opinion. When I first taught literature, my emphasis in instruction was teaching students to argue first, justify… Continue reading exploring literature instruction in my classroom, part 2 →

In my first two years at Avasara, I taught English literature to our first graduating class. I am still learning and understanding the demands of the curriculum and the needs of our students and how to successfully bridge the two. However, the most important choices I made to build critical reading and analytical writing skills… Continue reading exploring literature instruction in my classroom, part 1 →