I had a mixed reaction to reading Thirteen Reasons Why and its depiction of a girl's thought process towards committing suicide. The book tackles an incredibly important and emotionally charged issue, and I can see how we can use it as a vehicle to discuss these issues with our students. One of the most helpful aspects of the book is that it makes the reader consider how a person's actions, no matter how insignificant, can cause very intense emotions in others. It can be used in activities where classes jigsaw the thirteen reasons and discuss/write about their personal experiences with situations similar to that reason. It could even be extended into a social justice project where students develop a video campaign to raise awareness about treating others with respect, standing up for yourself and others, or paying attention to the warning signs that troubled people are giving. If they were posted on Youtube, it would give students an authentic audience to consider while planning and creating their videos. Through this type of activity, students would be able to investigate a significant and authentic issue and express themselves while using technology in a creative way.
A great resource on the website for the book is a discussion guide that can be used in book clubs or with a class. It has a lot of thought-provoking questions for readers to consider. However, there is another question that I would have my students explore. I was uncomfortable with how Hannah retaliated against the people she placed on her list of reasons to commit suicide. She threatened to have a second set of tapes which would cause embarrassment and possible legal trouble released if the thirteen people on her list didn't follow her orders. Isn't this bullying? She had a list of targets and threatened them with harm. At the very least it's manipulative, which isn't the best example for young people to follow (though, of course, we wouldn't want them to follow her example at all!). For me, she wasn't a very sympathetic character, which shouldn't diminish the tragedy of her death, but somehow it does. So my question is what was the impact of her tapes on the listeners, and was she justified in threatening to release a second copy if they didn't pass them on?
Thirteen Reasons Why - Cool Concept, but ...
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2 comments:
Emily-Really insightful post. You make excellent points about Hannah's retaliation and how her own actions could be interpreted as bullying. I did not consider that as I was reading, but I see what you mean. Like you, I did find Hannah hard to sympathize with and for similar reasons. I found it unfair of her to essentially hold others accountable for her own actions, particularly those people mentioned on the tapes who did not do anything to directly hurt or target her.
Emily, I agree that it was really hard at times to understand the motivation behind the tapes that Hannah made. I had trouble getting past the fact that she felt powerless to stick up for herself when she was alive, but through the tapes really gave it to the people that she felt harmed her in some way. I know there are so many young people that don't feel they can talk to anyone and there are so many tragic stories about people that are victimized. I couldn't connect the two sides of Hannah because she was victimized but in her tapes her presence was very strong.
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