Teach on Purpose!

Great teaching is not just a matter of talent or creativity or passion. Teachers are made, not born, and great teachers know why they do what they do in their classrooms. They do it strategically and purposefully based on technique. Teach on Purpose! demonstrates a high-quality research-based and practical approach to teaching that focuses on how to use data about students’ identities, experiences, and knowledge to design responsive curriculum and instruction that ensures learning. The authors provide secondary school teachers with scientifically proven strategies for creating learning environments that increase student motivation, engagement, and academic achievement. The text features model units authored and taught by practicing classroom teachers in math, science, social studies, and language arts to demonstrate key principles that can be used in any classroom to be a true professional educator. Teach on Purpose! empowers teachers across all content areas to create meaningful teaching and learning experiences together with their students for the success of all.

Teach on Purpose! will show secondary teachers how to:

• Respond to diverse learners’ needs while also meeting academic standards across content areas.
• Help youth actively apply what they learn to purposes in their lives beyond school.
• Use information about students’ out-of-school knowledge to enhance academic engagement and motivation to learn.
• Use evolving technologies to enhance traditional curriculum.
• Use multiple media and multimodal texts to reach students and engage them for success in contemporary ways.

Leslie David Burns is associate professor of literacy for the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Kentucky, and a winner of the Edward Fry Book Award from the Literacy Research Association. Stergios Botzakis is associate professor of reading education at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and is known for his work in multimodal literacies.

"The authors—Les Burns and Stergios Botzakis, as well as the guest teacher authors whom they invited as collegial chapter writers—are firmly united in their goal of engaging students first and foremost. They also make it clear that they expect their readers, whether other classroom teachers, administrators, parents, or teacher educators, to join them in their quest. They’re serious and they write as if students’ lives hang in the balance—because they do."
—From the Foreword by Donna E. Alvermann, The University of Georgia

"Teach on Purpose! is a pedagogical montage of pragmatic insight, exploring the depths of a practice centered at the apex of human connection—that magical point where teacher meets student. Beyond magic, the book examines powerfully both the art and the science, the heart and the mind of teaching, arguing for distributive practices that link healing and hope to profound opportunities based in responsive classroom engagements. Thus, 'teaching on purpose' is really about teaching with purpose, while helping students meet and exceed academic standards."
—David Kirkland, associate professor of English and Urban Education, New York University

"Burns and Botzakis offer practical strategies for purposeful teaching as well as research to share with policy makers who often make decisions that unintentionally contradict what is best for students. Teach on Purpose! will energize you and remind you why you joined the teaching profession in the first place."
—Renee Boss, National Board certified teacher and education blogger

"Dr. Burns taught me that when we teach, we teach human beings, not bodies in seats. He encouraged all of us to always remember that we shape our students with the skills we help them develop and, just as equally, with the fires we ignite within them. Dr. Burns is an inspiring educator who lights his own fires in the future teachers he teaches."
—Ashley Lamb-Sinclair, former student and 2016 Kentucky Teacher of the Year

"Too many texts about teaching preach an idealism that fails to consider the realities of teaching. But not this book. Burns and Botzakis firmly declare their idealism and “eternal pursuit of excellence” in teaching by demonstrating a clear understanding of teachers’ contexts. As a result, Teach on Purpose! is a book grounded in the realities of today’s classrooms that dares to challenge those realities. Soon-to-be-teachers, new teachers, veteran teachers, embittered teachers, emboldened teachers, and even those who prepare and work with those teachers will benefit from this book."
—Brandon Abdon, Advanced Placement Program, The College Board