Book excerpt: An eminently practical guide, Teaching as Story Telling shows teachers how to integrate imagination and reason into the curriculum when planning classes in social studies, language arts, mathematics, and science. In his innovative book, Kieran Egan refashions the ancient function of the storyteller with such clarity that any teacher can step into the role with confidence. Not only does Egan's book make the reader look anew at what is too often taken for granted about the ways in which children learn, it opens up a range of critical questions about our orientation to "objectives" and to either/ors when it comes to the affective and the cognitive. - Back cover.