Summer is the perfect time for teachers to look for new material to enhance their lessons for the upcoming year. As an educator in higher education, I have more flexibility than many teachers in middle school and high school. That being said, adding a short story or poem that is not in the curriculum may not be an option for some. But if you do have the freedom to complement your lessons with ‘outside’ materials, consider one of O. Henry’s less popular short stories: “Hearts and Hands.” A woman traveling by train is joined by two men who are handcuffed together because one of them is taking the other to jail. The story would work well in a unit on unreliable narrators, point of view, and dialogue. I plan to find a place in my first-year college writing course for this story, and I hope you can find a place for it in your classroom too.
