Land Mines
Eula Biss
Notes From No Man's Land

I connected least with this story out of all of the ones I have read by Biss so far. While in the past I have praised her braided technique I felt this one was disjointed and compartmentalized. The pieces of history on the emancipation felt forced. That could be perhaps the story for once was nearly one whole tale. The topic was focused solely on the education of children and the teachers part and desegregation. The story would have worked better with just one section or with more such as the previous essay's. The stories on teaching were all drawn from personal experience or hearsay and the historical portions were all purely factual which also could have lead to the fractured feeling.

The piece is broken into 9 blocked sections with paragraphs within each section but the breaks are less obvious then "Three Songs of Salvation"

An overarching theme is fear of the innocent. Before African Americans and children are given the opportunity to be shaped and molded with societal norms there is greater chance of actions that people cant understand and with that lack of understanding comes fear. She also comments "They are aware of injustices we have learned to ignore."

Questions:

How did Biss move from teaching to writing?
Does she have any of those inspiring teacher stories or had her experience teaching been wholly negative as the essay has led the reader to believe?