And as it turned out, she was. She took us into the school library as if it was the world’s most exciting amusement park. She gave us lists of books she loved, encouraged us to keep our own lists — how many books could we read during the school year? — and, as she got to know our individual tastes, pulled more books out of the shelves for us to consider.

But Miss Knox didn’t just encourage us to read. She made us write. She had a cardboard box filled with pictures cut from magazines, and every three weeks we would choose a picture and write what she called “a creative story.” You could choose a picture of a rocket ship and write about the people who flew it or the creatures startled by its arrival on their faraway planet; you could pick a farmhouse and invent a family who lived there; you could find a picture of a girl in tears and imagine what had led up to them. continued here

What Makes a Master Teacher.doc