In April 2025, Kacey Butcher Santana published “In Defense of Spiders” in Longreads. She blends memories from her childhood and recent past with intriguing facts and spiders (and bees) to ask essential questions about what it means to establish healthy boundaries around our identities and to assert our own power to create.
If you or your students have ever found yourself the target of bullying — or ever given in to the temptation to stand by while others become victims for a change — then this is a piece that will resonate with you. Whether you or your students find spiders fascinating or frightening — or perhaps a bit of both — you’ll find Santana’s writing style to be refreshing.
Click here to get access to the article as well as a slide deck you can adapt to use with your students and discussion questions (and answers) for use as an independent activity or a Socratic seminar.
If you teach AP or dual credit, this link gives you the same resources above — but you also get a Google Form with multiple-choice practice AND a couple of essay prompts.
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