Teaching Through the Storm: A Journal of Hope

In this beautifully written narrative, a first-grade teacher takes us into her classroom during an emotionally stormy year. Read this book and ride the storm with Karen Hankins as she struggles to address the pressing emotional needs of her disparate students while also meeting their need for literacy development.

Based on the author's reflective teaching journal, this work represents a threefold focus on narrative as theory, data, and method. In the process of writing and rewriting the narratives, Hankins discovered that they became powerful methods for understanding students and for shaping curriculum. Woven into the portraits of students are the readings this teacher found most helpful as she attempted to understand and cope with her ongoing inquiry, both about the special needs of these children and the role of narrative to guide her understanding.

Teaching Through the Storm describes the wrenching dilemmas of classroom life in an attempt to provide a counterpoint to those who have spun education and politics together as if platforms were solutions. Above all, this work presents an unforgettable insider perspective on the buoyant hopes of teachers and the sometimes stark realities they face.