Stephen King's Teaching Advice

Since I spent over 20 years as a writer before I started teaching full time, I've read my share of how-to and advice books, most of which I found useless. Imagine my surprise when I found myself  highlighting passage after passage from Stephen King's On Writing. I am not a fan of his novels (although when I was a kid I was home sick one day from school and absolutely devoured Firestarter), but he had the most practical and solid writing advice I'd ever read.

So, when I saw this article in The Atlantic on Stephen King's teaching advice from his years as a high school teacher, I was ready with my highlighter. The article does not disappoint, although I wish it would have been much longer. You can read it here.

My favorite part was when he said:

"It went best for me when I could communicate my own enthusiasm. I can remember teaching Dracula to sophomores and practically screaming, “Look at all the different voices in this book! Stoker’s a ventriloquist! I love that!” I don’t have much use for teachers who “perform,” like they’re onstage, but kids respond to enthusiasm. You can’t command a kid to have fun, but you can make the classroom a place that feels safe, where interesting things happen. I wanted every 50-minute class to feel like half an hour."

I am naturally a reserved person and am not inclined to be a circus clown in front of the class, but I do always try to convey as much enthusiasm as possible, because this is key in keeping students' attention. I once had a student tell me that she had no interest in poetry when she started my class, but that my excitement and enthusiasm for it made her want to come to class, and that she had thoroughly enjoyed the poems we studied. This was a coup, because poetry is not my thing, but I was aware that if I didn't care, I had no chance of getting them interested.

It made me sad when I commented that surely all of her teachers were excited about their topics, and she and other students who were listening chimed in and said no, most of their teachers seemed bored.

There's nothing better than an engaged class. I can see it in their faces, and I can feel the connection. Those are the golden moments, and those are the moments that I'm happy I left writing full time and have a chance every day to share my enthusiasm for writing, literature, and art.