Imagination and Literacy

In her newest book, teacher researcher and bestselling author Karen Gallas 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. This book gets to the heart of a theme which has been a strong undercurrent in her previous books.

“Karen Gallas shares persuasive insights that will be of importance to educators at all levels. As one pre-service teacher put it after reading the book, ‘I am now inspired to unleash the imagination of my students and see where it takes us!’”
—Gordon Wells, University of California at Santa Cruz

“Karen Gallas’s inquiry into imagination and literacy is an engaging illustration of the power of inquiry to inform teaching while making a substantial contribution to current theory and research on the meaning and power of imagination.”
—Curt Dudley-Marling, Lynch School of Education, Boston College

“Eloquent and intellectual . . . Karen Gallas offers us insights from her teaching journal and connections to philosophers from Freire to Bakhtin, showing teachers and researchers how to re-envision and improve our work with our students. I loved this book and have already recommended it to colleagues and friends.”
—Ruth Shagoury, author of A Workshop of the Possible, Mary Stuart Rogers Professor of Education at Lewis & Clark College