the rats since they had no toys. After describing the type of people who lived there, Annie tells the Kellers that she and Jimmie played in the deadhouse where the bodies were kept prior to burial.  Needless to add, her descriptions convince the Kellers to retain Anne as the governess for Helen.

Helen's parents, Arthur and Kate, arrive on the last day of the agreed upon two weeks to pick her up from Annie, bringing a dog as a gift for their daughter. However, the two weeks have not quite expired yet, and Annie is intent upon using all of the time that she has, even if it is only by a few hours.

Arthur does not believe that a few measly hours will make a difference, but eventually relents, and leaves Helen again with Annie. Annie is concerned that Helen's parents do not care that Helen lives a life wherein she is able to communicate with the world and that they are more concerned with making sure she is simply able to behave. Pondering this, she remarks bitterly, "Give them back their child and their dog, both housebroken, everyone's satisfied."

Annie compares her own experience in an asylum for the poor with Helen’s home life. When Captain Keller contemplates sending Helen to an asylum for the blind, fearing that she will never be able to learn to communicate on any meaningful level, Annie tells him and Kate what exactly an asylum means. The residents were criminals or “moral degenerates.” She and her brother Jimmy played among the corpses in the morgue because there was no other place to play. Jimmy died in the asylum after just a few months there, and she lived there for several years alone. She relates her experiences with her lack of education, when she begged a visitor to send her to a school for the blind. She herself is an example of how much a person can learn if just given the chance. Such a life Helen might be able to have if the Kellers would just let her continue to teach Helen in the way that she knows will be effective, separate from the interference of the family. Captain Keller agrees, giving her a time limit. Annie, desperate to save Helen from an asylum, agrees to the conditions.

After witnessing Helen's behavior of running around the dinner table, sticking her hand into things, and locking her in her room upstairs, Anne Sullivan realizes that Helen is completely out of control. As she ponders this situation, she writes,

The, more, I, think, the, more, certain, I, am, that, obedience, is, the, gateway, through, which, knowledge, enters, the, mind, of, the, child—

In Act II, Scene 2, Annie watches as Helen wanders around the breakfast table, sticking her hand directly into her mother's scrambled eggs. She makes the rounds at the table and starts to stick her hands in Annie's plate but is halted by Annie's grabbing them. When Mr. Keller and Mrs. Keller, object, Anne becomes rather angry, telling them that Helen is a "tyrant" for whom everything is done. "What good will your pity do her when you’re under the strawberries, Captain Keller?" she pointedly asks. Anne contends that she can help Helen if they will leave the room. But, what follows is an extreme test of the wills as Helen struggles to dominate the situation; instead Anne wins the battle by forcing Helen to eat with spoon and fork. During this time Anne spells into the girl's hand; however, Helen spits out her food in Anne's face. Controlling herself, Anne then takes a pitcher of water and douses Helen's face. When Helen gasps, Anne slips more food into the girl's mouth.

After this incident, Anne is convinced that Helen cannot learn until there are penalties for her misbehavior. When Mr. and Mrs. Keller return, Anne tells them,

She ate from her own plate. (She thinks a moment.) She ate with a spoon. Herself. (KATE frowns, uncertain with thought, and glances down at HELEN.) And she folded her napkin. 

Having won this first round, Anne feels encouraged, but then Helen goes to her room and will not let Anne touch her. So after deliberation, Anne goes to the Kellers who sit in the garden house. There Anne tells them that she must have complete control of Helen in order to be able to teach the girl. When they object, saying they want to help, Anne counters that they interfere. 

Not anyone who loves her, you have so many feelings they fall over each other like feet, you won’t use your chances and you won’t let me.

Finally, she gets the Kellers to agree to let Anne teach Helen away from her parents in the garden house; in this way, she will be dependent upon Anne, and Anne then can weild some power.

In Act One of William Gibson's play, The Miracle Worker, twenty-year-old Anne Sullivan completes her arduous train rides from the Perkins Institute for the Blind and arrives in Tuscumbia, Alabama, where the Mrs. Keller and her sarcastic son, James, meet her. As they make the carriage ride from the train station to the Keller home, Kate questions Annie, asking if it is possble to teach anyone as difficult as Helen.  Annie replies that Dr. Howe, whom Kate admires, did wonders, but "he never treated them [the children] like ordinary children."

When Mrs. Keller seems apprehensive about Annie's inexperience and youth, Annie boldly confronts these fears, asserting that she has great advantages over Dr. Howe, advantages that money cannot buy:

1. "The work behind me."  Miss Sullivan has read all that Dr. Howe has written on the subject, and being young has given her the energy to pursue this knowledge.
2. "Another is to be young." Because she is young, Annie contends, she has the energy to do whatever is needed to teach Helen.
3. "I've been blind."  Because Annie has experienced what Helen now does, she understands the issues involved with blindness; in addition, she feels a greater sense of purpose in breaking Helen out of the prison of this blindness.

Annie Sullivan comes to the Keller household from The Perkins' Institute for the Blind and is only partially sighted herself. In The Miracle Worker, the audience learns of the difference the institute has made to Annie who admits that she "crawled in here like a drowned rat" from a home for the destitute and orphans. She is haunted by thoughts of her brother Jimmie who died in the home and in Act I, the audience is introduced to Jimmie through Annie's thoughts. When Annie meets the Keller family and she learns of Helen's half-brother's name--James--the stage directions indicate that "the name stops her" and she mentions that her brother had the same name. 

When Helen locks Annie in her room, Annie is haunted by voices as she remembers when she was in the home and her brother was still alive, although barely. The doctor in the home tells her that her brother is going to die but Annie blocks out the voice. 

In Act II, after Annie's momentous struggle with Helen, trying to get her to behave and after, due to Annie's enormous capacity for patience, Helen folds her napkin, Annie is again haunted by voices. Her brother asks Annie if it "hurts to be dead" and the voices urge Annie never to tell anyone that she came from the home. When the family talk of the possibilities of putting Helen in an "asylum," Annie does not shield the Keller's from the reality of life in such a place. She tells the family how she and Jimmie used to play with rats because there were no toys and does not spare the Kellers any detail. 

In Act III, Annie is still haunted by the remembrance of having promised to stay with her brother "forever and ever" but by the end, after Helen has learnt the secret of language and can begin to express herself, the voices disappear. Annie waits for them to come but she "hears only silence." 

Annie's greatest obstacle with Helen is Helen's parents. They have indulged Helen unmercifully because they don't know what else to do with her. They are totally helpless to control Helen whatsoever, so they have just ignored her and tried to co-exist with her, but life is miserable and disorderly. Annie feels that as long as Helen's behavior is unruly, there is no way she will be able to teach Helen to communicate.

Helen is violent. She hits Annie, throws things at her and locks her in her room. Helen runs around the table at mealtimes and sticks her hands in everyone else's food. She makes continual messes in the house and has frequent temper tantrums. Annie asks Helen's parents to leave her alone with Helen for a week so that Helen will have no choice but to totally depend on Annie for everything. Reluctantly, the parents agree to do this. Captain Keller does not approve of the chaos that surrounds Annie's methods, and he is a hindrance to any progress that Helen might make. His wife finally convinces him not to fire Annie and to giver her a chance to do what she wants to do with Helen. Nothing else has worked, why not?

The Miracle Worker is a play by William Gibson which gives a different perspective other than Helen's own, on life in the Keller household after Helen is left blind and deaf from an illness as a baby. Before Annie arrives, the reader learns that Annie has "accomplished so much" at the Perkins' Institute and that she could not even write her name when she arrived there. Furthermore, she is leaving the Institute where she has been a pupil and will now be the teacher. 

When Annie arrives, the audience become aware that life has been very difficult for the family and that Helen has no boundaries and is pitied more than anything. Annie has an arduous task to convince a non-communicative Helen that her life is about to change and Captain Keller, Helen's father remains skeptical about what Annie can even achieve as "she is only a child" herself, he claims. 

Annie's past affects the way she responds to Helen because Annie is partially-sighted herself so has some understanding of Helen's frustrations. Annie also suffers terrible guilt because she feels that she let her young brother Jimmie down. Jimmie died and Annie feels responsible for not having taken care of him, even though there was nothing she could have done. Annie is determined that she will not fail Helen. It is that determination that ensures that she is not defeated; such like Helen's father expects. Annie remains resolute and stands up to the Captain and convinces Helen's mother that even a small step forward- like Helen folding her napkin- is the beginning of Helen's journey to communication. 

Hello! You asked about Annie Sullivan and her greatest strengths in dealing with Helen Keller. After losing her sight and hearing because of a childhood fever, Helen Keller is almost institutionalized. However, when the Kellers contact the Perkins Institute For The Blind in Boston, the institute sends them Annie Sullivan, who becomes Helen's teacher.

When Annie realizes that the child has been spoiled and allowed to run the household like a little tyrant, she reasons that she must first teach Helen obedience if she wants to teach Helen how to read and write.

I saw clearly that it was useless to try to teach her language or anything else until she learned to obey me. I have thought about it a great deal, and the more I think, the more certain I am that obedience is the gateway through which knowledge, yes, and love, too, enter the mind of the child.

Not only is Annie patient and determined in her dealings with Helen, she also utilizes Helen's three remaining senses of touch, taste and smell to teach Helen. She also teaches Helen to have self-control, as she herself, who is blind and has been institutionalized, has had to learn. Here is an excerpt of a letter she writes to her patron at the Institute For The Blind, Sophia Hopkins:

...I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the mother-love you gave me when I was a lonely, troublesome schoolgirl, whose thoughtlessness must have caused you no end of anxiety...

...There have been murder and treason and arson in my heart; but they haven't got out, thanks to the sharpness of my teeth which have often stood guard over my tongue...

Annie Sullivan's creative approach to teaching Helen contributed greatly to her success with her student. She adapted the lessons to Helen, not the other way around. In other words, she tailored the curriculum to Helen's needs.

Apparently, children learn language more quickly when they are free to move about among objects that interest them. They absorb words and knowledge simultaneously. In the class-room they cease to be actors in the drama, they sit and watch the teacher doing something with her mouth which does not excite their curiosity particularly. Passivity does not stimulate interest or mental energy. The child learns eagerly what, he wants to know, and indifferently what, you want him to know.

Annie Sullivan used what she had learned from Dr. Alexander Graham Bell with Helen. From Dr. Bell, Helen learned how to deliver proper, constructive criticism to a student. He was also unfailingly courteous in his demeanor.

He imparted knowledge with a beautiful courtesy that made one proud to sit at his feet and learn.

If he wished to criticize me, and he often did, he began by pointing out something good I had done in another direction.

So, you can see that Annie's strengths as a teacher were her patience, determination, creative approach to teaching, and her knowledge of how to properly offer constructive criticism.

Below are two links you will find immensely useful as you study Annie Sullivan. Be sure to read her letters in full. Thanks for the question!

Helen Keller faced many challenges both in her real life and as she is portrayed in William Gibson's play The Miracle Worker. Helen is, after all, both blind and deaf. Yet in Annie Sullivan's mind, Helen has still a greater challenge to overcome before she can learn how to cope with her disabilities. Helen must learn discipline.

Helen's family has spoiled her for years. They honestly don't know what else to do. When Helen doesn't get her way, she throws horrible tantrums. Her family then gives her sweets to try to calm her down. Yet this only teaches Helen that when she wants sweets, she must throw a tantrum. She is in charge of the household, not her parents, and life is miserable for all involved. Helen's parents continue to make excuses for her, saying that she doesn't know any better and cannot help herself, but they make no effort to teach her.

This is where Annie Sullivan comes in. She sees at once what what Helen really needs, and that is discipline. Helen must learn the meaning of the word no, and she must learn how to control herself. This is what Annie proceeds to teach Helen, working to stop her tantrums and holding onto her wrists to reinforce the discipline. Annie knows that if Helen cannot learn discipline and self-control, she will probably never learn to communicate in any meaningful way.