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It is not unusual for issues of sexuality to surface sometimes in high school English classes. However, explicitly teaching such topics can concurrently enhance students' sexual and English literacy experiences, as the author discovered in her ninth-grade English class in Western Canada when she used poetry as a vehicle for learning about topics such as healthy relationships, consent, sexual assault, and safe sex practices. This provocation closes with a narrative poem the author composed in an effort to capture the experience of one particularly revealing lesson from this unit.
English teachers are multifaceted and polymathic. Alongside our students, we explore cultures, perspectives, and lived experiences through text, often encouraging "intellectual development and affective maturation in students" (Williams, 2012, p. xi). Thus, through such diverse learning, sometimes-complicated discussions arise, and texts that touch on sexualities surface in our classrooms. Pickering (2004), who inspired the film Dead Poets Society (1989), argues that "teachers never escape sexual doings" (p. 237); if it is true that teachers (in general) can't escape sex, how might English teachers (in particular) purposefully integrate it in their curriculum? Johnson (2015), citing Lewis and Tierney's (2011) work, posits "in the English classroom, where personal growth is often an explicit part of the curriculum . . . , sex might seem a natural fit" (p. 61). Therefore, English teachers would do well to develop effective teaching strategies for addressing issues related to sex education including sexualities, healthy relationships, consent, and so forth. Further, finding dynamic ways for educators to exercise reflexivity in their teaching practice is also important when trying new approaches to learning.
I have been fortunate to teach English in a progressive public secondary school in western Canada where the teachers have a great deal of autonomy to develop curriculum that attends to students' collective needs and interests. As Brezicha, Bergmark, and Mitra (2014) argue, "Effectively leading a complex and dynamic system requires leaders who [understand and respect] how individuals make sense of their work while working within the context of their social environment and boundaries of the school setting" (p. 124). We have such leadership at the helm of our school, which I realize makes my context a bit of an educational nirvana. Nonetheless, I hope my experiences might have some...