Why Mrs. "ELA Powers All Jobs" believes diverse books spark empathy and career thinking

What happens when a teacher champions ELA as essential to any career?

In this candid Q&A, a high school teacher in New York City shares how she sees literature as a vehicle for empathy, not just career prep.

She opens up about the post-COVID motivation dip, the limits of personalization in the classroom, and why she’d rather have a five-minute hallway chat about career paths than force it into whole-class instruction.

This conversation challenges assumptions about what makes reading "worth it" for students—and why diverse books might matter more than relevance.

The identity of this teacher has been protected with a pseudonym that sums up their take on motivating readers with career connections.

The text of this interview has been shortened for clarity.

You're a high school teacher. What grades do you teach?

9-12.

How is your ELA curriculum organized for the year and where do texts fall into that planning?

I design the curriculum.

I use a combination of resources that I put together, and I use Teachers Pay Teachers. We are text-dependent and believe in the power of literature.

My students are reading books. Maybe not a lot, but they are reading. We structure the class thematically:

The freshman curriculum is centered on identity.

Sophomore year — relationships and friendship.

Junior year — leadership and citizenship.

Seniors — dreams, goals, and making a difference.

What's the easiest part about motivating your students to engage with your ELA curriculum?

.

What's the most challenging part?

All of it is challenging. The motivation to show up and respect the learning environment is diminished in a post-COVID world.

My students struggle to read two chapters.

Motivation is hard, even if you try to make it relevant to them.

Do you have a problem helping students answer that inevitable question: When will I need to know this in my future?

Students say AI can do it for me.

Students don't necessarily know what they want to do.

For students who want to be a doctor, teacher, or lawyer, I can tell them why ELA is relevant. Plus, these students are more intrinsically motivated and recognize its value. They understand the stakes of school. They show up to class and do the reading.

It's the students who don't know what they want to do or want to pursue careers like cosmetology, making those connections is harder.

Have you tried to solve this problem?

I haven't tried looking for solutions.

On a scale of 1-10, how important is it for high school ELA to feel relevant to students' career possibilities?

5 or 6. ELA is the most important subject, it impacts other subjects.

Students don't need career relevancy but an appreciation for the richness of the skills learned.

The appreciation needs to start in elementary or middle school. It's a vicious cycle.

Teachers teach to the middle. It's not possible to keep every student engaged. Most of them fall into the high or low categories.

Look at the Mississippi Miracle during COVID.

Agree, disagree, or qualify: Students aren't motivated to read their assigned texts because they don't know how to activate them in life outside of the classroom.

Disagree.

I don't think it's important that a text is relevant to your life outside of school. That's why we read diverse texts.

If everything is relevant to you, you've failed to learn how to be a part of a community.

Agree, disagree, or qualify: Career connections have a place in ELA curriculum.

Agree.

ELA is fundamental to any career you may pursue, even writing an email as a software engineer.

Fill in the blank: Connecting plot, characters, and literary devices in a text, chapter by chapter, into skills used in any career path my student is interested in, makes me feel...

Excited.

If a white student from the Upper East Side can appreciate a diverse book, like a Toni Morrison novel with a character with a life story different than their own, that's exciting.

During what part of instruction do you see career connections making the most impact? Whole class, small groups, independent work, homework?

One-on-one.

Why would I waste my instructional time catering to vastly different career paths?

I'd rather do that in a 5-minute conversation in the hall.

Recap: Making diverse books stretch with career connections

This teacher was somewhat interested in career-connected reading, but didn’t see it as essential for her classroom.

What did spark her interest? A solution that makes diverse texts actionable, helping students engage with characters unlike themselves and apply their stories, along with key literacy skills, to any career path that excites them.

If a student from the Upper East Side can appreciate a Toni Morrison character that has a life story different than their own, that's exciting.

For her, relevance comes not from matching students’ lives, but from expanding their world—and giving them tools to navigate it.

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