Dear Mrs. Fowler,
Did you know that when we read The Outsiders by SE Hinton in your eighth grade, Honors English class that you helped me feel less alone?
I always came early to your class because it was the period after lunch. Your classroom was a place of refuge from a lunch period spent circling the outdoor food court at Upland Junior High.
Monday through Friday, I would spend my lunch periods pretending I was looking for the table where my friends were sitting, when, in reality, my friends had turned on me, threatened to beat me up, and I had no one to sit with. So, I would walk, holding back tears, dying of embarrassment and fear, sure everyone was looking at me, positive that everyone knew I was alone and friendless. As soon as I was allowed back in the school building at the end of the lunch period, I rushed to your classroom to sit and read, relieved I made it through yet another lunch hour.
When I read The Outsiders, I realized that feeling left out was a universal truth, something that had been happening to teenagers for decades. The boy who sat behind me even wanted to talk about the book with me. It became clear that other kids were watching me, but they weren’t thinking I was a loser. They thought I was really good at reading books.
Then you handed out mimeographed copies of The Veldt by Ray Bradbury, and lectured about the symbolism in it. A light bulb went off for me that day and you took my reading life to the next level. I already loved reading but, in your class, you gave me the key to the unlocking the hidden meanings in the books I read. I would never read a story the same way again.
When you assigned The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gillman, you planted the seeds of feminism in me. The unnamed narrator’s struggle with mental illness and the isolation that stemmed from being a woman in the 19th century is something I still think about today. You were my only female teacher to use Ms. instead of Miss or Mrs.
I didn’t remember any of these life changing moments until today, when I pulled my 1984 yearbook off the bottom shelf and saw your smiling face. Seeing your unruly, permed brown hair, slipping out of your bowl haircut like noodles, brought me back to the moments when literature made its first tentative steps into my life.
My mother gave me books and reading, but you handed me the first tools to dig deeper below the surface and my reading life is richer for it.
You wrote in my report card, “A-#1, all year! Good work!” in my report card, and all I can say now is, Right back at you, Mrs. Fowler. Right back at you.
This post is part of the Meta Journal Workshop Series. In the series, I teach writers how to use journals and ephemera from their past to find inspiration for their writing.
For this post, I invited writer, Nicole MacPherson to join me in finding inspiration in our junior high school yearbooks. You can read her post here.
Writing Prompt
Pull out your old yearbooks and look through them. Don’t have an agenda, just enjoy flipping through the pages and see what comes up for you. Maybe put on some music from the year of the book you are looking at. After ten minutes of exploring the book, set a timer for 15 minutes and start writing. Here are some ideas to get your started.
Study the faculty section, were there are any teachers you loved or hated? Were there rumors around the school about any of them? I know there were two teachers at my school that everyone was SURE were having an affair. (You know how reliable thirteen year olds are.)
Look through your classmate’s photos, do they bring up any stories? Would any of them make good characters for your novel? Can you cross-reference your old diaries and find stories about some of the people in your class?
Find inspiration in the clothing that everyone is wearing or the music and activities that are mentioned in the yearbook. Set a story in that time frame and use your yearbook as a source for research for that era.
Read the inscriptions that people wrote in your yearbook. Do any spark memories? I was personally surprised by how many people wrote sweet, personal things and I don’t even remember them or the events they are referencing! (Which is a story in itself.) But there were also notes written by my crushes and best friends that still warm my heart.
Have fun and feel free to share your discoveries and stories in the comments. If you want to post a longer story on your blog or Substack, feel free to link to it.
Eighth grade is rough, and I think it always has been and always will be. You and I have always found solace in books! I love this about us. Thanks for bringing me along for the ride.
Mrs. Fowler sounds like a real gem. I wonder if she's still alive and if you'd consider sending your letter to her.
I read The Outsiders for the first time last year. It had a real impact on my son when he read it when he was in 8th or 9th grade. I can understand why. Those feelings are universal, though we assume (even beyond Jr. High School) that we're the only ones feeling left out and everyone else knows some secret we'll never figure out.
I might actually have a yearbook with me so I'll take a look. One thing I do remember is that when I went to college and other people looked at my yearbook, they'd point out the not-so-cool guys and talk about how good looking they were. Same with some of the girls. It was an eye opener. Literally.