Fantasy author Terry Goodkind is living evidence that good teachers really do make a difference. As a boy, he had been made to hate reading because most adults chastised him for being so slow at it. It wasn't that the young Goodkind didn't like the stories that were in books, but he had a great deal of difficulty sorting out the words. He had dyslexia, though he didn't learn this until later. His teachers--most of them, anyway--taught him that what was important in reading and writing was getting the grammar and spelling correct. What's more, students were judged on how many books they could read, whether they were literary works or not. Goodkind liked to read adventure stories, such as the Edgar Rice Burroughs books, which he found in his local library.

But then in his senior year of high school Goodkind met Ann Hansen, his English composition...