Gryphon Short Story

In the story Gryphon, by Charles Baxter, a boy named Tommy who goes to Five Oaks elementary meets an interesting new teacher. As the story begins, Tommy’s teacher, Mr.Hibler, tells his class that he has been feeling sick today and won’t be coming to class tomorrow. The next day, someone amazing comes in the classroom and turns out to be no ordinary substitute teacher. As the day goes on, she tells her students unusual stories and everyone loved the stories/facts. In the story it says “There was not a sound in the classroom, except for Miss Ferenczi’s voice, and Donna DeShano’s coughing. No one even went to the bathroom.“ The next time Miss Ferenczi came to their classroom was early December. This time Miss Ferenczi brought tarot cards so that she can determine her students future and unfortunately she got in trouble. Later that day Miss Ferenczi was fired and left the school. Tommy defended Miss Ferenczi because she made school interesting, was different than other teachers, and really cared for her students.

Tommy was interested and inspired by Miss Ferenczi because she told secrets to him that he had never known. She taught

Another example is when John Wazny was told to recite the tables of six. About six times eleven equals sixty eight and not sixty six and everybody disagrees about it being sixty eight. Then Miss Ferenczi tells “Besides, I’m your substitute teacher, am I not?” We all nodded. “Well, then, think of six times eleven equals sixty-eight as a substitute fact.”. But in real life there is no such thing as a substitute fact and Miss Ferenczi told it was a substitute fact because she thought it was just one mistake for the multiplication so she made an excuse that it was just a substitute fact. What she meant is that it is ok to make just one mistake and everyone should not make a big deal with just one mistake. For these reasons Tommy defended Miss