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This kind of emotional reaction was typical of what the students wrote in response to reading about poverty and homelessness. That particular semester, I assigned readings on one particular theme-i.e., poverty and homelessness. Over the course of the first few weeks, we read about a dozen essays, then a longer nonfiction piece, Jonathan Kozol's Rachel and Her Children, and finally, a novel, Kaye Gibbons's Ellen Foster. I hoped the students would find the readings interesting and that, taken as a whole, they would provide a common classroom experience upon which to base our discussions. I also tried to choose material that I thought would provoke strong student reactions.