Today Spring Valley's English 4 class spoke via phone to the author of "The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace". This a non-fiction piece written by Jeff Hobbs, the Yale college roommate of Robert Peace. Rob Peace was born and raised in Newark, NJ to "an unwed mother who worked long hours in a kitchen. Peace's intellectual brilliance and hard-won determination won him a full scholarship to Yale University...majoring in molecular biophysics, and biochemistry...Upon graduation for Yale, he went home to teach at the Catholic high school he'd attended, slid into the drug trade, and was brutally murdered at the age of 30".
This book is part of the English 4 curriculum and is featured as part of a unit entitled "Life Choices". Mrs. Roberson's students spend an entire quarter reading, discussing and writing about the characters, plots, and themes this rich novel had to offer. Students also designed and presented projects that best exhibited their learning of this story, and one project was actually shared with the author, who in turn, shared it with Rob's mother, Jackie Peace.