Fictional Classrooms: National Community of Practice – June 2025 Meeting

Fictional Classrooms: National Community of Practice – June 2025 Meeting

Date: Monday, June 16th, 2025

Time: 2:00-3:00pm (AT) / 1:00-2:00pm (ET) / 10:00-11:00am (PT)

Sign up to join! (you may be prompted to log in to your Google account)

Fictional Classrooms National Community of Practice Description:  

Over the past three years, our very own Matthew Dunleavy (CTEI Senior Educational Developer, Faculty Excellence and Development) and his colleague, Robin Sutherland-Harris (York University), have facilitated the Fictional Classrooms community. The current iteration brings together educational/curriculum/faculty/instructional developers and instructors from across Canada and the US to explore and reflect on narratives of education in films, television, short stories, and novels. These works may speak to us as learners, educators, developers, researchers, artists, and/or simply as humans. 

For Summer 2025, the Fictional Classrooms community is delving into Donna Tartt’s novel The Secret History (1992). 

The Secret History Synopsis: 

Under the influence of their charismatic Classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality, their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill. 

The Fictional Classrooms Community Summer 2025 Schedule: 

The novel is nicely split into two books, so we will meet twice on the following Mondays from 1:00-2:00pm EST via Zoom: 

• Monday, June 16th – Book 1 of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History 

• Monday, August 18th – Book 2 of Donna Tartt’s The Secret History 

To join the Fictional Classrooms Community for Summer 2025: 

Please sign up as follows: 

1. Visit https://groups.google.com/search?q=FictionalClassroomsED (you may be prompted to log in to your Google account) 

1. On the right-hand side, click the small “Join” icon (next to the star) and ask to join group 

1. Matthew and Robin will approve your request within 2 working days, and you will then have access to the group, including their shared Google Folder and Calendar.  

Note from Matthew and Robin: We approach the Fictional Classrooms program with a “read-what-you-can” mentality. We understand that we can get busy and may not finish readings each month, but we encourage you to attend each session regardless of how much you have been able to engage with the text or film so we can still have fruitful conversations and build community.