This is the first panel of the two-day conference (April 8-9, 2016) on the popular television series The Wire, hosted by the Heyman Center for the Humanities at Columbia University. This panel is titled "Teaching The Wire" and featured Frances Bartkowski, Rutgers University-Newark, Marcellus Blount, Columbia University, Sherri-Ann Butterfield, Rutgers University-Newark, Toby Gordon, Johns Hopkins University, and Arvind Rajagopal, New York University.