I help my students learn how to challenge the dominant narratives around social issues; how to research effectively to educate, inform, and persuade; and how to tell a great story to capture and engage the audience. This is why I use W. W. Norton’s Contemporary Public Speaking by Pat Gehrke and Megan Foley in my public speaking classes.
Exhibiting in the Humanities: How Showcasing Student Work Can Transform History and English Classrooms
Craig Nicoletti is an AP U.S. History teacher and Humanities Program Chair at Christian Brothers College High School in St. Louis.
Setting the Stage Through Social Justice Speeches
Dr. Clariza Ruiz de Castilla highlights how she uses Contemporary Public Speaking to encourage her students to write speeches on social justice in an era where inequalities are increasingly discussed.
Reading Beyond the Text: How to Show Students That English Skills Are Career Assets
Associate professor and department chair of English Dr. Felicia Jean Steele teams up with W. W. Norton to preserve the English department. Read how she ensures her English students are prepared for any career and gain access to her career competencies table she provides all her students.
Behind the Scenes: Norton’s Approach to AI in Higher Ed
At Norton, we've been fielding a lot of questions and seeing a lot of buzz about GenAI in higher education. So, we're pulling back the curtain on Norton's approach to meeting the challenges and opportunities of AI through this interview.
Rolling Forward: How THE NORTON ANTHOLOGY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE Continues to Shape the Classroom
Looking back at the First Edition of The Norton Anthology of African American Literature reminds me that each generation of scholars of African American literature before ours had to reinvent the wheel every time they tried to do research or sat down to plan a class. English literature has been well documented for decades. A student did not want for bibliographies of British scholarship or dictionaries of Shakespearean language, or collections of Elizabethan poetry and edited editions of medieval lyrics. By contrast, there were few comparable volumes for African American literature, and certainly no single book brought together its most important and representative works so that instructors could teach with one authoritative text.
Speak Up! Personalized Support for First-Time Public Speaking Instructors
Assessment and curriculum coordinator Kendall Belopavlovich explains how W.W. Norton’s instructor resources and courseware prepared them for teaching public speaking sooner and allowed them to flourish as a first-time instructor. Read about the three things they couldn’t teach without.
History as Exploration: Guiding Students Beyond the Familiar
I realized that these students are interested in the world in all its multiplicity; they don’t know where to start. The history of exploration provides a path for them to engage with the world through a familiar lens without entirely leaving their comfort zone. So now I try to complicate and expand rather than to dismiss.
Five Tips for Navigating Your First Dual Credit Course
Morgan Cline is a 2025 graduate of Teays Valley High School in Ashville, Ohio, currently studying aviation and music education at The Ohio State University. Imagine starting your first year of college. New school, new friends, new living arrangements, potentially a new city to call home, new activities—new everything. For many, this is the biggest …
Continue reading Five Tips for Navigating Your First Dual Credit Course
“Digital Detox”: Using Norton Critical Editions To Promote Critical Thinking
The Norton Learning Blog has recently featured several posts that offer suggestions for generating greater classroom success by integrating ChatGPT and similar machine-learning-applications. (I find the latter a more accurate—and less anthropomorphizing—term than AI.) However, this particular post goes out to all who—for pedagogical, or numerous other reasons—search for the grail of LLM-free spaces.