Words Unbound draws on Milton Burke s thirty years of teaching experience to help educators bring Inferno alive for today s young reader. In a conversational, colleague-to-colleague style, Burke shares the interpretations, questions, and exercises he found effective in his high-school classroom, emphasizing group discussion and helping students engage meaningfully with the notoriously difficult text.

Burke employs what he calls an inclusivist approach, meaning that all readers, no matter their religious or philosophical moorings, can find it rewarding to ponder Inferno...