How to Teach College

Secrets from a Master of the Craft

James W. Loewen

Edited by:

A posthumous book by the bestselling author of Lies My Teacher Told Me, sharing the strategies and secrets of an award-winning, fifty-year career as a college professor

“Not a few professors teach solely because they have to, to hold a position that lets them do what they really want to do, which is ‘their work’—their research, their writing. . . . Those professors miss the joys of teaching.”
—from the introduction to How to Teach College

In addition to being a bestselling author, James W. Loewen was also a prizewinning educator, with a career spanning over half a century at institutions including Tougaloo College, Harvard University, and the University of Vermont. Beloved by his students and the recipient of many “best teacher” awards, Loewen’s last undertaking before his death in 2021 was this book, How to Teach College, a brilliant distillation of his wisdom on the subject.

Encompassing advice both epic (how to convey a love of one’s topic and motivate students to become lifelong learners) and technical (how to plan a syllabus, manage the classroom, handle grading, and more), the book draws on firsthand stories and anecdotes from Loewen’s own courses on sociology and race relations.

With a special emphasis on reaching students from diverse backgrounds and teaching potentially difficult subjects, How to Teach College comes to us in Loewen’s vibrant, original, and inimitable voice. The book is a gift to university professors and high school teachers—those new to the profession as well as experienced instructors—and will be of interest to the millions of fans of Loewen’s other books.

The manuscript was edited by Loewen’s son, Nicholas Loewen, a longtime high school English teacher, and sociology professor Michael Dawson, with whom Loewen shared an early draft.