A Writing-to-Learn/Reader-Response Approach to Teaching Antigone

I must begin with a confession. When I was a senior in Clair Stein’s humanities class at Baldwin-Woodville High School, Wisconsin, in the spring of 1967, we studied Sophocles’ Antigone. By the time I had finished reading the play, I fantasized that I could save Antigone from her cursed fate if I were to marry her. Since then, every time I have read or seen or taught the play, I have had flashbacks to those romantic adolescent dreams. I also have them every time I drive by the Antigone Bookstore at the intersection of Fifth Street and Fourth Avenue in Tucson-something that happens several times each week.