They strongly connected with Diaz’s poignant but unsentimental epiphany at the end of the story. Yet my students’ biggest take-away from the piece wasn’t necessarily related to empathy, but was just as important in my opinion. That’s important to me because I firmly believe that if there’s one thing we should hope to teach our students, it’s empathy. It also gave my students, most of whom are white and from wealthy families, a window into the world of a young Dominican immigrant whose background and relationship with money is incredibly removed from anything they’ve experienced or are likely to experience. It made them laugh and it made them think. Díaz’s story was unquestionably their favorite. I taught “The Money” to my 7th grade students along with two other short pieces by other authors. It was a work of creative nonfiction and it had the content I was looking for: a young narrator, edgy language, exciting plot, thoughtful insight on the human condition, and, for good measure, even an allusion to Dostoevsky.

It was called “The Money,” a short childhood remembrance about a time when Diaz’s family’s apartment was robbed and how he “solved” the case. One day, sifting through some old copies of the New Yorker, I finally came across a Díaz piece I could use with my kids. I’m always searching for literature that strikes a balance between intellectually challenging and developmentally appropriate. But I also want texts that will truly push my students to become better readers, writers, and thinkers. I can’t use texts that are rife with sexuality and profanity, like much of Díaz’s work. Despite teaching books often found on high school English reading lists, I still teach middle school. I had been trying to work him into the curriculum for a while, but it’s tough. And, as I fully expected, my biggest success with this experiment was an essay written by Mr. In an effort to liven up our reading selections, I recently decided to incorporate some new forms, such as flash fiction and creative nonfiction, into my classes. I now teach at a fantastic independent school outside of Boston: The Meadowbrook School in Weston, Mass. After all, the cadence, energy, and emotional punch of his prose had been a driving force in my choice to make a career out of exploring literature with others. Years later, after I went to grad school for education and started teaching middle school English, it still bummed me out from time to time that that I did not say something to him when I had the chance. Still, after he passed by, I regretted my silence. Really, I just didn’t want to be obnoxious and stop him in the middle of the sidewalk-dude looked like he was on a mission.

Junot diaz the brief wondrous life