Teaching With Magic: 101
Welcome! Class is in Session!
Hello, new subscribers- my name is Elise Trudel Cedeño, and I'm so happy that you're here. As a teacher, It's always wonderful to meet those who are excited to learn, and to learn more about, well, learning! I’ve been blogging for a few years now, and I’ve released the 2nd season of the Teaching With Magic Podcast, but I realized that I haven’t fully introduced myself on Substack- so here goes!
Welcome to Teaching With Magic: An Exploration of Pedagogy, Literacy, and Fantasy Literature. In this blog, we investigate the following:
Teachers who take inspiration from fantastic works of literature, pop culture, and film and make their magic in the classroom.
Character analyses of teachers, mentor figures, and classrooms from famous stories such as The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Harry Potter*, and many more stories to come.
Think of our time together as your free professional development. If you're a fan of fantasy literature and want to make magic in your classrooms, then this is the space for you. We'll learn together what makes a great teacher, what makes a class community special, and how we can continue to make magic and bring magic into our students' lives.
In past episodes and posts on my site, we’ve looked at mentor figures like Gandalf, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Luke Skywalker, Professor McGonagall, and various representations of Merlyn (T.H. White’s The Sword and the Stone and The Once and Future King, and Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court). I’ve chatted with other educators like Dr. Andrew Higgins, Jordan Rannells, and Dr. Kristine Larsen about how they use fantasy texts in their classes to teach their content.
Here on Substack, I’ll share my podcast episodes, (very slowly) transcribe them from audio to print, and share some of my old posts from my WordPress site (with updates, of course).
Thanks for reading, and I hope you’ll enjoy Teaching With Magic!