Teaching core classes in animation, students often believe that their instructors might be lacking in some of the basic literacy skills as themselves. Students seek to identify with and in some ways imprint their own experiences onto the teachers they work with daily. Often students think that my math or writing skills are marginal because my degrees are in art. It is important that we capitalize on the desire to emulate instructors and help student’s develop traditional academic skills. One thing that I have tried to do is provide examples of those skills in my own work. Writing is especially easy to reinforce when students are trying to write proposals or production bibles. Showing students an example of my own, walking them through the process and allowing them to refer to it throughout the process provides a positive example that reinforces itself. Any number of aspects can be taught this way including project/time management, resource citing, and general language usage.