Mr. Daniel Pereira

Biography:

Mr. Pereira was born in the hometown of Robert Louis Stevenson. He grew up where Ken Kesey attended college, and then spent a year living next to a house formerly inhabited by Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. He went to high school in the town Judy Blume wrote about in a book which is currently 8th on the list of most-banned books in America . He went to college at Elizabeth Bishop's alma mater, where his heroes were David Foster Wallace and Oliver Sacks. He started teaching at GW in 2001. In addition to teaching English, he provides college counseling and coordinates curriculum. To distract himself from thinking about his classes, Mr. Pereira spends time writing an absurdist philosophical novel about pirates, playing Ms. Pac-Man, and hiking. He is married and owns one very fat cat.

Mr. Pereira is the Winner of the 2008-2009 Washington Post Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Award

Courses Taught:

World Literature 1:

Explosions! Giant Scorpions! Romance! Beast-men! Haiku! Ancient literature is my favorite class. People back in the day really knew how to tell stories, and all the stories we tell today have been influenced by the classics. In this course, we will explore the early literature of many regions, including China, Japan, Greece, Italy, and the Middle-East.

This course has three main purposes:

• The first is to familiarize you with world literature up to the Middle Ages, particularly literature influential to the development of modern Western literature, and particularly the Epic form of literature.
• The second is to develop the writing skills you will need for High School. In particular, we will focus on the personal essay throughout the year.
• The third is to improve your ability to work with others in an academic setting through group projects and presentations.

American Literature:

The best thing about American literature is that it's written in American instead of a foreign language like French, Latin, or English. Also, American literature is usually about Americans, and Americans are really interesting: they lie, steal, murder, dissemble, slaughter, misappropriate and kill. I don't know about you, but I find people who do those things extremely interesting when they're in a book, instead of living next door. All the stories this year will either deal with lies, theft, murder, lying about murder, lying about theft, or murderous theft. And that's what America is about.

Senior Seminar: Greatest Hits:

It was a dark and stormy night. Mr. Pereira tossed and turned in his bed, unable to deal with the guilt of his horrible crime. What crime was it? Was it murder? Was it embezzlement? Was it burglary? No. It was a far worse crime: a crime….against literature! He knew that in his heart of hearts, he had never taught the perfect English class, an English class 100% free of boredom, 100% dedicated to the greatest that literature had to offer: one great English class to rule them all! He knew the time for that class was not later. Nor was it before. It was NOW.

But how? He leapt out of bed. The eldritch lightning highlighted the twisted curls of his chaotic hair, while it bathed his maniacal visage in inky shadows. Pacing to and fro across the floor of the crumbling Parisian garret that had become his only refuge, he concentrated the full force of his intellect upon the task at hand. And then it hit him, just as if he had been struck by one of the Jovian blue bolts that streaked by his window, and the even the deep rolling thunder could not swallow his laughter whole. How simple it had all been! How very simple! Here he was trying to create a new class when all along, the elements of his glorious victory had been present in his past classes. All he had to do was remove the bad parts of each previous class, and then sew the remainders together into a new whole: the daring and adventure of The Odyssey, the passion and poetry of Hamlet , the philosophical acuity of postmodernism. These would become the vital organs of a new monstrous, magnificent creation: SENIOR SEMINAR: GREATEST HITS!

Newspaper:

Journalists have three rules: Tell the truth, act independently, and party hard. Our class will feature in-depth instruction about two of these rules. Which two? You can only find out if you join. But no matter what we learn, we will put out The Howler, GW's own newspaper of record. Students will have the opportunity to practice their writing and interviewing skills, and to be part of history!

Hours Available For Extra Help: