Fifth Grade
Worksheets
Bill Wallace, Teacher Survivor
Bill Wallace described himself as a survivor. He was not a survivor of an accident. He was not a survivor of an illness. He was a survivor of teaching.
Bill Wallace was teaching elementary school when he realized how powerful stories could be. He read Old Yeller to his class. His students loved it and wanted more. He chose other books, but his class did not pay attention. In fact, he used the word miserable to describe his experience of trying to read to a class of twenty-five students who did not listen.
Bill's students asked him to tell stories about his growing-up years. He kept this up for a while but soon ran out of stories. Bill then made up his own stories. His class loved them. He wrote his stories down after he told them. That is when he became a writer. He explains that he became a writer to survive his first year of teaching.
Bill Wallace was born on August 1, 1947. He was born in Oklahoma. Bill went to the University of Science and Arts of Oklahoma. After graduating, he attended Southwestern Oklahoma State University where he received a master's degree.
In 1971, Bill received his first teaching position. With these twenty-five fourth graders, he became a writer. Bill continued to write and teach. For the next seventeen years, Bill was an elementary teacher and principal. In 1988, Bill became a full-time writer and public speaker.
