“Writing, Thinking, and Teaching”

Abstract

This article shares four dialogues with Vivian Gussin Paley to show how the author embarked on a journey of “writing, thinking, and teaching” with Mrs. Paley. Their journey started with the author sharing stories about students in her classroom through written correspondence with Mrs. Paley. In the process of writing and thinking, the author developed her own realizations about why children play, why they create stories, why storytelling/story acting is such an important method to help children explore and learn together, and how important it is for children to tell the stories they wish to tell when there’s no reason to stop them. Mrs. Paley’s replies inspired the author, and their dialogue motivated the author to explore further. In conclusion, the author reveals how this process of writing and thinking about these anecdotes and the like with Mrs. Paley positively affected her teaching.