I come from strong storytelling stock. My mother, a 1946 graduate of SPU, inspired me with tales of a brave peasant boy and an aquatic dragon that she wrote down and published. As a professor, I took a page from her life and wove stories into my classroom teaching of astronomy and economics. The students always paid closer attention if I first captured their imaginations.
When it recently came time to issue the fifth edition of my book, Calculus the Easy Way, first published in 1982, I again couched the subject in an entertaining story about travels in the fictional land of Carmorra. The inhabitants of this mythical kingdom learn the subject right along with my readers in a plot riddled with problems to solve.
Today's college students can grasp the concepts of calculus by associating them with exotic or unusual happenings in my story.
— Doug Downing, Associate Professor of Economics, Seattle Pacific University
