About Stack the Deck

Letter from the Publisher

As two high school English teachers, Bob Cahill and I developed the Stack the Deck writing system because of our frustrations with the writing skills of our students. We wanted to attack two specific areas: poorly written sentences and unsupported, disorganized compositions.

Of utmost importance was building a positive attitude in our students. Consequently, we began with oral language activities to make them aware of their intuitive control over language. We then shifted to teaching sentence manipulatory skills in a functional way, establishing a writer's vocabulary to help with revision. Finally, we taught a step-by-step process approach, which ensured student success and incorporated four teacher-labor saving devices. In a word, the ideas were practical.

After writing our first textbook, we struggled over a title. Since Bob and I were always using the expression "Let's stack the deck for student success" as we developed writing assignments, we decided to call our first textbook Stack the Deck. Both a system and company were born.

Since then, fellow teachers have written composition textbooks for our company with the same philosophy. We now publish eight composition books, an essay exam booklet, six computer software programs, and writing folders, so that we offer an articulated program for 3rd through 12th grade students. Each textbook is a self-contained teaching program, and can be used independently of the rest of the series.

Our philosophy at Stack the Deck is simply stated: Help a teacher do a job, and you win a friend! We have won many friends across the country over the past years.

Herb Hrebic