Michael Clay Thompson Biography

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MICHAEL THOMPSON, who, through his teaching, his books and presentations, has inspired thousands of students and educators with a new love of language and literature, was a classroom teacher, middle school head and academic, over a period of thirty years. He is now a full-time author and consultant, and an acclaimed speaker and workshop presenter.

He has served on the Board of Directors of the National Association for Gifted Children and is an online instructor in Language Arts for the Northwestern University Gifted Learning Links program . He has been a faculty member of the Wake Forest University Summer Institute for Gifted Education, also the University of North Carolina/Charlotte Summer institute for Gifted Education and The Cullowhee Experience. He has served on the Board of Directors for the North Carolina Association of Gifted & Talented and on the regional Board of Advisors to the North Carolina/South Carolina Future Problem Solving Program. He has been consultant to the Center for Gifted Education at the College of William and Mary, consultant and Lead Scholar for the National Javits Project for Language Arts, and President of the Indiana Gifted Association.

His books (with Royal Fireworks Press), are: WORD WITHIN THE WORD, vocabulary series; MAGIC LENS, grammar series; the fun vocabulary book SESQUIPEDALIAN NEOLOGIST'S LEXICON; CLASSICS IN THE CLASSROOM, literature overview and list of 1,300 classics; CLASSIC WORDS an exploration of the language of great English literature classics; THINKERS! an exploration of trends of thought in literature/an argument for reading the works of good thinkers; CAESAR'S ENGLISH, vocabulary program showing English and Spanish rooted in Latin (co-authored with his wife Myriam); BUILDING LANGUAGE 3rd grade vocabulary program; THE HEART OF THE MIND, essays on teaching the nature of creativity, and approaches for working with gifted children ; GRAMMAR ISLAND, for 3rd grade, GRAMMAR TOWN and GRAMMAR VOYAGE for 4th and 5th grade; THE CONCEPTUAL DIALECTIC, a discussion of concept instruction. THE SELF EVIDENT TRUTH SERIES starts with the story of the Declaration of Independence: JEFFERSON'S TRUTHS, followed by the Gettysburg Address: LINCOLN'S TEN SENTENCES and then an examination of Martin Luther King's I Have a Dream speech: FREE AT LAST. Thompson's  innovative and challenging poetics program is produced in appropriately beautiful volumes: THE MUSIC OF THE HEMISPHERES; BUILDING POEMS; A WORLD OF POETRY; POETRY AND HUMANITY, POETRY, PLATO AND THE PROBLEM OF BEAUTY and POETRY, PLATO AND THE PROBLEM OF TRUTH. Then there is RELATIVITY, QUANTA AND CONSCIOUSNESS, a remarkable interdisciplinary discussion, and a ground-breaking series on writing, beginning with SENTENCE ISLAND and continuing with: PARAGRAPH TOWN and ESSAY VOYAGE. Practice Sentence workbooks are low-cost workbooks (with Teacher Manuals) for students to work through 100 extra practice sentence in each book and designed to be used in parallel with the grammar, vocabulary and writing books. New for 2008: Advanced Academic Writing, Volume 1

Michael's work also appears in DEVELOPING VERBAL TALENT (William & Mary Center for Gifted Education.) He is the Editor of the monthly magazine, Our Gifted Children.

Michael lives in Raleigh, North Carolina, with his family. You can visit his website.