Creativity, Teaching, and Natural Inspiration

Creativity, Teaching, and Natural Inspiration is a 60,000 word nonfiction work detailing one high school English teacher's evolution into a creative and innovative teaching style, which is juxtaposed against a public education system bent on didactic, normalizing regulations and political demands. Key elements utilizing memoir, anecdote, poetry and dialogue, explore mixing creative thought with concrete items in order to innovatively teach the conventions and standards of English in the high school setting. A chunk of firewood plunked on a classroom table becomes part of a sawmill, a mine timber, an Anasazi artifact, a city slicker mistake, and lessons in science, ecology, economy and sociology. It also becomes a poem, a song, an essay, and a memoir with many lessons-many themes. The long, slender feather of a Sandhill Crane evokes Muir, Thoreau, Audubon, Leopold, Carson and grows into sayings, stories, poems, science lessons and even parables of lore and magic. The common thread of creativity holds the fabric of this book together and runs throughout each chapter like fragrant woodsmoke. The text, however, does not make philosophical statements until the final chapter, in which the life story is held in oppositional contrast to current educational trends and practices.

• | Author: Mark Doherty
• | Publisher: Unsolicited Press
• | Publication Date: May 14, 2019
• | Number of Pages: 218 pages
• | Language: English
• | Binding: Paperback
• | ISBN-10: 1950730026
• | ISBN-13: 9781950730025