Introduction: I am fascinated by the truth of anachronisms and by how the voices who speak to me seem to speak to each other, back and forth across time, yet also present at each moment. In my classroom, I am the medium through which these conversations are always encouraged and sometimes introduced. My gift is for enthusiastic introductions--these are a few of the voices I have loved in the last year--only a few, but I share them with you now and ask that you listen closely, opening yourself to growth. May each of us truly bloom from where we are planted, taking comfort that the struggle is shared across time and space. If you skip some parts, just be sure not to miss the student voices at the end, fresh and bright, inspired sometimes in anger and always in earnest, glad to learn but also able to teach. The students are in the midst of developing their own voices, functioning as ephebes in a complex world that limits their education with formulaic writing instruction and specific content mastery, but then asks them to have developed a mature writing voice in the meantime. My class, which occurs in their eleventh year of formal education, is the first year in which they are free of TAAS, Texas' minimal skills test. My students seem pleased to be allowed to pursue a personal voice, once they are convinced that I mean what I say, that they will be taking an Advanced Placement exam at the end of the year, but that they may pursue individual paths of growth to get to the place of their choosing. As Milton's Eve, the Medieval Mary, and my student voices reveal, strong personalities prevail to create text, no matter what their obstacles. Creative voices manage to be heard.
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