Tough Texts: Why It’s Good for Teachers to Wrestle with Some Material

Credit: iStock.com/araelf
Credit: iStock.com/araelf
As James Boswell, noted biographer of 18-century English man of letters and dictionary author Samuel Johnson, writes in Life of Johnson, “The art of communicating instruction, of whatever kind, is much to be valued” (p. 70). That art, I would add, benefits when teachers wrestle with material they find pedagogically challenging, particularly material outside of their expertise.

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