About Dr. Whimbey

Arthur Whimbey

Arthur Whimbey’s first book, Intelligence Can Be Taught, was the catalyst for the Critical Thinking Skills movement in education.  At the time it was published, Benjamin S. Bloom, emeritus professor of education at the University of Chicago, said, “I found myself unable to put the material down until I had finished it.  This is a very important book.” 

SOAR (Stress On Analytical Reasoning), a program whose curriculum Whimbey designed, has helped tens of thousands of high school and college students reach their goals of entering the medical and dental fields by teaching them to “think” like scientists and has been written about in Newsweek and the Washington Post. Another of his programs, Mastering Reading Through Reasoning, is widely used in schools and learning centers and is still thought to be at the cutting edge of reading research more than twenty years after its first publication. In all, Whimbey has written over 30 textbooks and various software programs, which have been helping teachers improve the reading, writing, and math skills of their students for nearly 40 years.

Whimbey’s latest program, Thinking Through Grammar, was coauthored with grammar guru Myra J. Linden. By starting with very basic sentence structures and building up to the more complicated structures that students will encounter and use in both high school and college, it teaches students to think about language as a system that they can use to express themselves.   In the words of one high school English teacher, “Students learn to view language as a system that they can manipulate and master.”

Myra J. Linden-Whimbey

 With a Ph.D. in writing, Myra J. Linden taught English and worked as a writing specialist for over 35 years before semi-retiring to write books and provide consultation services to various colleges, school districts, and businesses. She was instrumental in the development of the Academic Skills Center of Joliet Junior College and is the main author of such innovative books as Why Johnny Can't Write and Keys to Quick Writing Skills.

Linden's insight and knowledge, gained from years of helping adolescents and young adults improve their writing, were key to the development of Thinking Through Grammar. Throughout her career she has been honored with several awards, including the Certificate of Achievement from the NCTE and the 2008 Susan H. Wood Hall of Fame Award from Joliet Junior College.