[4][5] She was known for promoting the "project method" of teaching spoken English: assigning students a real-life situation of "socialized recitation", for example, presenting an award or campaigning for office, to focus and motivate their composition and speech.
[6][7] Her pedagogy blended language instruction with "wholesome moral lessons"[8] and the Americanization goals common in public education at the time.
[7][10] One journal reviewed her first book, The Teaching of Oral English (1914) as "a delightfully unique textbook that reads like a novel".
[11] Bolenius wrote a monthly column on language for McCall's Magazine;[12] she also wrote a monthly column titled "Where Girls May Meet" for the journal American Motherhood, responding to the letters she received from girls.
[13][14] Her publications included the following titles: Emma Bolenius married radio producer Edwin Morse Whitney in 1933.