Jinx Watson Connects Literature to Students' Lives

As a professor working with pre-service teachers and future librarians, Jinx Watson hopes her students will reflect upon the lives of the children they will serve in their careers

"I encourage my students to think about how can we make the subject become more accessible for students," said Watson who has been an Associate Professor at the College of Communication and Information at the University of Tennessee for ten years and an educator for thirty years in Massachusetts and Tennessee. In the last two decades, she has introduced Facing History to dozens of new educators-especially librarians-many of whom have then attended Facing History seminars, which the Memphis office of Facing History conducts in east Tennessee on a regular basis. Watson is currently a member of Facing History's National Teacher Leadership Team.

Literature is Watson's passion and she particularly values Facing History's approach for using memoir as a lens for studying history. "I offer memoir as a key teaching tool for appreciating 'sensitive' histories, for telling perspectives of historical events," she said. When Watson applies Facing History to the works of literature she introduces, students make connections about role individuals play in the watershed events of the past.

"The whole idea of telling and sharing real people's stories of the individual is powerful. Where is the ordinary person in the midst of this panorama of history -this huge sweep of political, economic and social events? What are the mothers doing? What are the girls doing? What are the schoolboys doing? That sort of thinking, I think, has really come out of years of working with and knowing about Facing History."

One year, Watson organized a student book club looking at memoirs of the civil rights movement. The books focused on the actions of young people during the movement and included Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Patillo Beales, and Selma Lord Selma by Sheyann Webb. "Facing History influenced my selection of the book titles and also the way I went about the book discussions," she said.

Twelve students-black and white, boys and girls, juniors and seniors- from an urban high school that has a predominantly poor to working class population, met every other week for a semester. Watson received a small grant that paid for the books and provided the students a small stipend-"Christmas money," she called it.

The club was a great success. Watson heard stories of the students' mothers, aunts, and sisters also reading the books. She heard stories from Knoxville's integration days. Most of all, she said, she was struck by the impact the books- and the young protagonists they portray- had on her students.

"I found it profound that there are kids who think that teenagers aren't capable of doing anything important. I thought showing that ‘these were examples of teenagers who did things,' was very good," she said.