"Note From The Editor"

Welcome, my friends, to Say What Magazine.

I'm going to take advantage of this page to explain the purpose of our magazine. To do this I will need to explain a little about myself. First let me tell you that I don't like textbooks. I don't mean to offend any of you who have written textbooks but I don't like to use textbooks often in my classes. I use textbooks like I do a dictionary, they're great for reference but I wouldn't sit down in my free time and read one for enjoyment.
Enjoyment is one of the focuses of our magazine. I believe that language learning happens best when the learners enjoy what they're doing. I don't enjoy math. I suffered through Geometry for a long time when I was in high school. I read the textbooks and did the practices but I'd rather go to the dentist than go to a geometry class. After high school I began playing pool. I really enjoy pool but I wish now that I knew more geometry. If I really understood angles well I would be able to improve my pool game. Unfortunately, I never made a good connection between geometry and anything fun that I wanted to do. If I could have played pool and calculated the angles on a pool table, I would have learned geometry. The same idea is true with English.

If we make English interesting to students then they will learn it faster and better. I've always tried to bring authentic texts into my classroom to create interest and discussion with my students. Often I've brought texts that were just too difficult for my students to understand. We would spend our time defining words instead of reading for meaning. Our goal at Say What Magazine is to provide you and your school a monthly magazine that will be interesting to the students and also be at a level that they can gain confidence in their reading comprehension skills. We want to help you to help your students. I've worked with my partners to create the kind of magazine that I have always wanted to have for my classrooms. I hope you enjoy Say What and find it useful for your students.

Best regards,
Dan Rueckert
CEO, Say What Magazine