Teachers at Work

I don't naturally love short stories, even though I do like small things: fairies, marshmallows and babies all come to mind. But in my personal reading, I prefer the meatiness of a long book, be it fiction or non-. Even in my magazine reading (and I am a devoted magazine reader), I catch myself flipping ahead to see how long an article is before I start. To my mind, the longer the better, which is why I am inordinately fond of Malcolm Gladwell's articles in The New Yorker.

Michele Dunaway teaches English and journalism at Francis Howell High School in St. Charles, Missouri, when she's not writing best-selling romance novels. Here Michele continues her discussion from last month about how choosing the right literature to read is the key to getting students excited about books.

The New York Times is a vocabulary-learning bonanza for students at all levels, employing a larger number of what teachers would call "vocabulary words" than any other American publication. And inside The Times, every day, there's a bonanza within that bonanza, the succinct and telegraphic television listings page, whose capsule movie reviews employ more vocabulary — including words, terms and expressions — than any other page in the paper. And quite enjoyably, too.

We welcome back Michele Dunaway, who teaches English and journalism at Francis Howell High School in St. Charles, Missouri, when she's not writing best-selling romance novels. Here Michele argues that to get students excited about books in this highly distracted era, choosing the right literature to read is key.