Patrick F. Berger dies; taught literature for 46 years with passion
Patrick F. Berger led discussions in English classes with theatrical enthusiasm, congratulating a student's bright answer with a shout, "Incredible insight!" He challenged his high school athletes to play with "vehement ferocity!"
Mr. Berger taught the works of such writers as Chaucer, Shakespeare and F. Scott Fitzgerald to students at five high schools and several area colleges for 46 years. He died Monday (Jan. 9, 2012) of cancer at his home in Des Peres. He was 72.
He taught English and Irish studies at De Smet Jesuit High School in Creve Coeur from 1994 until November 2010, when he was diagnosed with kidney cancer. He began teaching in St. Louis in 1964 at St. Louis University High School, while studying to become a Jesuit priest.
He coached water polo, football and tennis at some of his teaching assignments.
Rob Hutchison, a fellow English teacher at De Smet, said of Mr. Berger's style: "The energy he drew from students during classroom discussion was his 'magical elixir'" — a reference Mr. Berger would have appreciated.
Stone Phillips, a scholar-athlete at Parkway West High School and a network television correspondent, told the Post-Dispatch in 1987 that participating in Mr. Berger's class "was as satisfying to me as a Saturday afternoon touchdown pass."
Mr. Berger grew up in Denver. In 1957, he entered the Jesuit order's former St. Stanislaus Seminary in Florissant. He taught English at SLUH from 1964 to 1967, left the order one year later and taught for one year at St. Mary's High School.
In 1969, he married Carol Altekruse of St. Louis. He received a doctorate in American literature from St. Louis University in 1973.
Mr. Berger taught English in the Parkway School District, first at Parkway West and then Parkway South high schools, from 1969 to 1994.
He also taught evening classes at St. Louis University, Webster University and St. Louis Community College. During the 1990s, he and his wife jointly taught Irish studies at the Florissant community college campus and took students on study tours to Ireland.
Teaching F Scott Fitzgerald - News
Mr. Berger taught the works of such writers as Chaucer, Shakespeare and F. Scott Fitzgerald to students at five high schools and several area colleges for 46 years. He died Monday (Jan. 9, 2012) of cancer at his home in Des Peres. He was 72.
home in Kings Point, NY, in an affluent slice of Long Island that F. Scott Fitzgerald immortalized in “The Great Gatsby” as West Egg and East Egg.Go to related article » | Go to related column » Teaching ideas based on New York Times content.
It was F. Scott Fitzgerald who famously wrote there are no second acts in American lives. It is Jon Robin Baitz who says that's utter baloney. “There's nothing but second acts,'' the playwright says over coffee in the café of a Greenwich Village hotel.
10, 2012 10:08 AM Communities around the Valley are joining in the annual National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage literary reading through community engagement by tackling F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby.
Of course, this was said by F Scott Fitzgerald who was slowly descending into alcoholism and craziness, so take that for what it's worth. That said, here are two seemingly conflicting ideas that I suspect are true: First, virtual worlds (think Second
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald | Aesop to Oz
? A great book brings to my mind a million jumbled ideas all trying to tumble out at once. There is an awful lot of time spent staring at the wall trying to decide where to start and what to make the focus of my post about..
I’ve been wanting to read The Great Gatsby for a very long time. I am already a big Fitzgerald fan. But I wanted to wait for the perfect moment because I was afraid if I rushed into it, my treasured hope of loving the book would be ruined. I wanted The Great Gatsby to be the culmination of all the promise I saw in Fitzgerald’s other works.
I’ve read The Beautiful and Damned, This Side of Paradise, and several of Fitzgerald’s short stories. In each, there are perfectly strung sentences and quietly dropped metaphors which give that tense warmth in the chest that beautiful writing can cause. Fitzgerald is the master of the unexpected adjective, that quality gives a unique joy to his writing, for me. But the previous novels I read, as a whole, did not live up to the individual sentences; and the short stories often lacked soul. In The Great Gatsby though, it all finally comes together. I have a couple more Fitzgerald novels to read, Tender is the Night and The Last Tycoon, but I’ve heard nether of these are on the same level as The Great Gatsby and it almost makes me teary to know that we will never have another example of Scott Fitzgerald living up to his potential.
I know many people do not like The Great Gatsby. My Dh had to read it in high school and hated it. I think I can understand that feeling. I have a couple theories on why it is a loved or hated book. First, I don’t think it is ideal for teens or anyone who reads primarily to relate to the characters. When we are in our teens and early 20s I think we often read books to find others who understand us. We look for characters who typify our experiences, struggles, and emotions. Fitzgerald is not an author to turn to if you are looking for that connection, unless you are a middle class kid trying to fit into an upper class clique lol.