We caught up with Timothy Gangwer, a pioneer in the field of visual learning and the author of Visual Impact, Visual Teaching, and asked him some hard questions about how teachers can expand their teaching methods to keep pace with the current generation of visual learners.  Continue reading...

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. Michele has an important lesson for those who teach and study literature: your analysis always depends on your personal perspective.  Continue reading...

Shannon Reed, a regular contributor to our Teachers at Work column, teaches at the Brooklyn Theatre Arts High School, where she has discovered that adapting the Euripides play Iphigenia has lit an unexpected spark for her students.  Continue reading...

I'm in mourning this week: my school is closing. Not the one I work in now, but Stella Maris High School, a small (ultimately, apparently, too small) Catholic girls' school, which I've always described as "on the beach in Queens." It really is on the beach — just about 50 yards from the sand. When we had fire drills, we dispersed to the boardwalk. Stella might be the only school in New York City where students were routinely chastised for wearing bikini tops under their uniforms.  Continue reading...

Irving Berlin knew it when he wrote, "From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans white with foam." Emma Lazarus knew it when she wrote, "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free." Abraham Lincoln knew it when he wrote, "Of the people, by the people, for the people." And Thomas Jefferson knew it when he wrote, near the beginning of the Declaration of Independence, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and, at the very end, "our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor."  Continue reading...

Michele Dunaway teaches English and journalism at Francis Howell High School in St. Charles, Missouri, but she has a double life: she's also a best-selling romance novelist. Michele has some compelling advice to teachers of writing: "teach the basics first and worry about voice later."  Continue reading...

"...Once more, or close the wall up with our English dead." Appropriate words to start a new school year.

See what I did there? Our English dead? Like, our English Language Arts dead? Funny stuff, right?!

Sorry. I'm writing this during the second week of school. Just having pants on is a major accomplishment.  Continue reading...