This literature review was a whirlwind of information for me. Each reading started off as dry and academic and in the end because very emotional and personal. As I got better at finding articles that were more and more relevant to my topics (alternative schools, students BED, at-risk & low-income high school students) I started to see myself in the situations the authors were discussing, and to internalize the messages they were trying to convey through the data. Much academic research seems abstract to me, like it was discussing events on a foreign world or in the empty space where Newtonian physics play out. This, on the other hand, felt like it was an over-the-shoulder description of my every day life in the trenches. What I liked about it was the qualitative aspects that were able to academically conclude things similar to my viewpoint (better relationships, more open environments); here was something I could potentially take to another educator and say “See? It’s in the literature.” Whether I will actually do this or not remains to be seen…