What happens when a teacher loses her classroom library to censorship—and her students are living through floods, hurricanes, and displacement? "Morgan" invites us into a practice built on place, care, and student stories. Instead of giving up on relevance, she transforms lived experience into the curriculum: teens write about storm damage, read FEMA applications as functional texts, and use multimodal storytelling to process eco-grief and advocate for resources. Morgan traces her journey from a novice teacher with a Florida-centered library to an agile practitioner who makes space for small, daily moves that matter—morning check-ins after a flood, quickwrites that convert chaos into language, and targeted vocabulary that helps students name what they’re facing. The result: literacies that feel real, teach critical reading and argument, and restore a sense of agency.
There’s hard truth here too: teaching under today’s mandates is often intentionally unsustainable. Morgan also talks about how and where she found community— a “watering hole” beyond the building where educators troubleshoot policy shifts, share materials, and remind each other they’re not alone. Whether you’re navigating book bans, building place-based units, or looking for practical strategies that fit into five minutes, this conversation offers tools and hope for teaching literacy in a climate-changed world.
To cite this episode:
Persohn, L. (Host). (2026, Jan 13). Stories-To-Live-By with “Morgan.” (Season 6, No. 6) [Audio podcast episode]. In Classroom Caffeine Podcast series. https://www.classroomcaffeine.com/guests. DOI: 10.5240/6F5A-D715-A0AE-FE0D-25F1-Y
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