Becoming a Teacher Who Writes
Let Teaching be your Writing Muse
Nancy Gorrell [+–]
English teacher and poet
Nancy Gorrell (BA summa cum laude & MA State University of New York at Sony Brook) is an English teacher, poet, and award-winning author of numerous articles on the teaching of poetry in the English Journal. Her poetry has appeared in English Journal, Rockford Review, BlueLINE: A Literary Magazine of the Adirondacks, and Footwork: Paterson Literary Review, among others. A former New Jersey State Teacher of the Year, in 2001 she was awarded Outstanding English Language Arts Educator by the New Jersey Council of Teachers of English, and she received a Governor’s Award in Arts Education from the State of New Jersey.
Becoming a Teacher Who Writes: Let Teaching Be Your Writing Muse addresses the vital need to create more English teachers who are able, willing and prepared to engage in the life-long process of becoming writers and, ultimately, becoming teacher/writers. Facing the reality that most English teachers are not writers themselves, this book holds as its central premise the belief that a teacher does not have to be a writer to begin teaching writing. Here English teachers can discover the joy of creative expression and the heart and art of their own teaching by becoming teachers who write – and do so while they teach their students to write.
Emphasizing that it’s never too late to begin a process of becoming, Becoming a Teacher Who Writes illustrates through poetry, memoir, testimony of students and writers, and practical classroom-based stories, one possible way of making the journey. The book is interactive, suggesting reflection and written responses from the teacher-reader in the For Your Journal section at the end of each chapter. By encouraging writing along with the reading of the text, this book aims to help teachers discover both the creator within and the writer within. At the same time, each chapter concludes with a practical application lesson, For Your Students. By encouraging simultaneous application in the classroom along with the reading of the text, this book aims to help teachers discover and also create themselves as writers and writing teachers.
Becoming a Teacher Who Writes: Let Teaching Be Your Writing Muse holds as its primary aim the transformation of the personal and professional life of the English teacher. It strives to encourage teachers to touch the joy that is the heart of their teaching and become teachers who write while they teach their students to write.
Series: Frameworks for Writing