Imagination and Literacy: A Teacher's Search for the Heart of Learning

In her newest book, teacher researcher and bestselling author Karen Gallas carefully investigates imagination in the classroom to understand its function in literacy learning. Using rich examples from her elementary classrooms, she proposes that imagination is a central, but untapped, component of learning across all subject areas—language arts, science, social studies, and math. Getting to the heart of a theme that has been a strong undercurrent in her previous books, Gallas examines:

• The changes to teaching that occur when imagination is placed at the center of the learning process.
• How students naturally use imagination to further their own learning.
• Three key areas of literacy learning—identity, discourse acquisition, and authoring—to develop a new conception of the teacher’s role in the literacy classroom.
• A theoretical framework for literacy learning that crosses subject areas and grade levels, including examples of student dialog, writing, artwork, and classroom projects.
• A long-term teacher research study, demonstrating how it reshaped a teacher’s practice.