Willowbrook students chat with author from Iceland during interactive Remote Learning experience

Author Birna Anna Björnsdóttir (pictured above, third from left in the top row) speaks with Willowbrook students during a virtual classroom meeting with English teacher Michael Sullivan. During the online session on May 18, Björnsdóttir answered the students’ questions and discussed her story “To Everything, Tern Tern Tern,” her writing process, the environment, her native Iceland and more.

Despite dealing with the adverse impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Willowbrook English teacher Michael Sullivan recently provided his students with an interactive Remote Learning experience.

To prepare his English 10 and English 10 Honors classes to read futuristic novels “The Road” and “Fahrenheit 451,” Sullivan had the students read a collection of 10 short stories in the literary journal “McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern,” each of which was set in the year 2040 and dealt with an element of climate change. One of those stories was “To Everything, Tern Tern Tern” by Birna Anna Björnsdóttir, which takes place in 2040 Iceland and combines the impact climate change has had on the arctic tern with a daughter’s quest to find her missing mother.

Sullivan reached out to Björnsdóttir on Facebook and shared questions the students compiled for the author. Björnsdóttir said she would be happy to join Sullivan’s virtual classroom meeting. On May 18, she answered the students’ questions directly and discussed her story, her writing process, the environment, her native Iceland and more.

Other guests who joined the conversation include Willowbrook English teacher Regina Wathier, retired Addison Trail teacher Larry Benischek (who served in the U.S. Air Force and was stationed in Iceland) and former Willowbrook student Anke Prinsen, who was a foreign exchange student from the Netherlands and now lives in Iceland.

For more information about Björnsdóttir, go to https://tinyurl.com/y9urjvnl.