Teacher Appreciation: Authors You Didn't Know Were Teachers

Picture of Jillian O.
Jillian O.

Jillian is a New Orleans-based library associate, writer, and movie-lover. When she's not working, she likes to read creative nonfiction, and write for various film sites.

As we adjust to being back at school this month, let’s appreciate the hard work of teachers by looking at these eight famous authors who you probably didn’t know brought their skills to the classroom:

Alice Walker

Alice Walker, author of the classic “The Color Purple,” is a prolific writer and social activist. Born February 9, 1944, Walker grew up in Eatonton, Georgia, attending Butler-Baker High School and graduating as valedictorian in 1961. Soon after, she took off for Atlanta to attend Spelman College, where she became involved in the civil rights movement.

Her success and Spelman led to her receiving a scholarship to a university in New York where she earned her Bachelor of Arts in 1965. She started writing from the time she was in primary school and by 1968 she published her first poetry collection “Once.”

Two years later, she published her first novel “The Third Life of Grange Copeland.” In 1972, Walker became a teacher at Massachusetts’ Wellesley College and the University of Massachusetts in Boston. 

Booker T. Washington  

Writer and activist Booker T. Washington was born on April 5, 1856. His mother was an enslaved cook and his father was a white man whose name is not known. In 1865, his mother brought him and his siblings to Malden, West Virginia. There, Washington worked in coal mines, attending school in the process.

At age 16, Washington started school at Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia. There he learned trades and developed an interest and talent for oratory and debate. In 1875, he graduated with honors and was chosen by his mentor, Samuel Armstrong, to teach at what would become Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute in Alabama, a school that emphasized hands-on education.

In 1900, Washington wrote his first book “Up From Slavery,” which detailed his ascension.

Charlotte Bronte 

Author of the classic novel, “Jane Eyre,” Charlotte Bronte’s life wasn’t too different from her eponymous protagonist. She was born in 1816, Thornton, Yorkshire, England to Maria and Patrick Bronte, an Irish-born Anglican clergyman. She attended the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge, which is believed to have inspired her portrayal of the fictional Lowood School in her novel. She went on to receive a strong literary education and, despite her less than ideal experience with the Cowan Bridge school, she became a governess and teacher.

Her first position was at a wealthy estate in 1839, where she tried to tame and teach unruly, rebellious kids (how little times change).

Dan Brown

Dan Brown, famed thriller writer known for “The Da Vinci Code” and “Angels and Demons,” was born June 22, 1964 in Exeter, New Hampshire. From the start, education was important to his family as he attended Phillips Exeter Academy where his father taught mathematics. For college, he went to Amherst College in Massachusetts, graduating in 1986, then went on to teach English and creative writing at Phillips Exeter Academy in 1993.

Five years later, Brown published his first novel “Deception Point,” featuring the notable protagonist, Robert Langdon, who would later appear in “The Da Vinci Code.”

J.K. Rowling 

The author of the classic “Harry Potter” series, J.K. Rowling held many jobs before becoming a writer, including work in education.

Born June 31, 1965,  Joanne Rowling grew up in Gloucestershire, England and, as a self-described bookworm, she developed a desire to write from a young age. She studied classics in college and, after moving to London, went on to do a variety of jobs, including research and teaching. The idea for “Harry Potter” came to her in 1990 when she was traveling between Manchester and London. By 1992, she was teaching English as a foreign language in Portugal where she met her first husband.

Not long after, she moved to Edinburgh, Scotland, where she trained as a K-12 teacher and taught at city schools while she drafted the first chapters of “Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone.” 

Joyce Carol Oates 

Joyce Carol Oates is a prolific author who’s continuing to expand on her body of work to this day. She’s best known for such novels as “Garden of Earthly Delights,” “We Were the Mulvaneys,” and “Blond.” What some people don’t know is that the famed writer is also a professor who taught at Princeton University. In her youth, she attended Syracuse University as an undergraduate and then earned an M.A in English from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

At the age of 84, Oates still instructs the next generation of writers at Princeton, Rutgers, and New York University.  

Laura Ingalls Wilder 

Famous for the “Little House on the Prairie” books, Laura Ingalls Wilder was born in Pepin, Wisconsin in 1867. Laura had two sisters, Mary and Caroline, and a brother who died at nine months of age. The family lived a fairly itinerant life, moving from Wisconsin to Indian territory Kansas and then back to Wisconsin again. In 1874, the Ingalls family moved again to Walnut Grove, Minnesota, the locale that would feature prominently in her books.

Although she never earned a diploma she was considered an advanced student. At the age of 16, Laura took an exam with the superintendent of the county school and earned her teaching certificate and taught her first term soon after at one-room school houses. She continued teaching until 1885 when she married Almanzo Wilder. It wasn’t until 1932 that she published her first “Little House” book.  

Maya Angelou 

Born Marguerite Annie Johnson in 1928, Maya Angelou was a memoirist, poet, and activist from St. Louis, Missouri. Her early life, which she wrote about in the memoir “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,” she held many jobs in her early years, including cook, actress, and nightclub performer.

She published her first memoir in 1969. In 1973, she went to Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for a speaking engagement, earned an honorary degree from them in 1977, then taught classes in poetry, drama, and racial politics up until her death in 2014. She once said in an interview, “I’m not a writer who teaches. I’m a teacher who writes. But I had to work at Wake Forest to know that.”

Back to School Recommended Reads  

Looking for some books to get the students in your life excited to learn this year? Check out Jillian’s suggestions below:

 

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