Washington Irving Society

October 29, 2025

BY CHERYL WEAVER

“That all this might not be too onerous on…his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider…schoolmasters as mere drones.”

The first time I encountered Irving’s work—aside from vague childhood memories of Disney’s 1949 The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad and my young adult adoration of Tim Burton’s 1999 Sleepy Hollow—I sat enthralled as my graduate school American Lit professor regaled me with Irving’s importance. Who knew, I thought, as I considered the context of Irving’s Rip Van Winkle, that Irving’s project played such a role in creating an American cultural identity? Roughly ten years later, my interest in Irving reignited when I was awarded a fellowship through the Women’s History Institute at Historic Hudson Valley. My research centered on women’s letters and the United States Post Office, but archivist Catalina Hannan’s knowledge and enthusiasm for Irving piqued my interest once again.

At the May ALA conference, I attended a panel hosted by the Washington Irving Society and met the Society’s President, Tracy Hoffman. We spoke briefly at the WIS Business Meeting: she, thinking ahead about the direction of the Society, and I, puzzling out how I could contribute, turned to pedagogy—not an altogether drastic turn considering Ichabod Crane’s occupation. We made tentative plans to develop instructional materials and methods for engaging learners of all academic levels in the serious study of the author. Ideas began percolating in my mind about how I could fit Irving thematically into my current curriculum.

I teach Language and Literature at a public high school boasting a robust International Baccalaureate program. My students are academically successful, with the expected mischievous nature of young people. (There are a few young Brom Boneses in my midst—harmless, though boisterous.) I needed to hatch a plan to cover the author and share my own adoration of his work. But I had some fundamental questions to consider first.

What exactly do my high school students know about Irving? Sure, most are familiar with the broad strokes—a headless man atop a strong steed, knife in hand, roaring and galloping toward his frightened object desperate to escape across a bridge. But would they be interested in the original text? Further, how could I frame Irving within the parameters of my course and work on stronger cross-curricular planning?

And then it hit me.

Could I position Washington Irving as America’s first influencer? Could that be a starting point to engage my students in reading Irving’s text? Could my larger curricular focus on identity use Washington to consider individual, regional, and national identities and how those are formed?

Those questions frame the unit I’ve just begun on Irving’s stories, timed to coincide with the same historical period in my students’ course on U.S. History…and Halloween. A few days in, students seem to be receptive (more on that to come!), and I anxiously await their reaction when I appear in class on Friday as Crane before they head to their history class, taught by a certain headless horseman.