Teaching

Burns has said that he stumbled into teaching with little preparation because of the intense demand for teachers in inner-city schools. Burns taught seventh grade. Psychologically, he compared the experience of teaching to Vietnam. He found the experience profoundly challenging because of the emotional damage that the vast majority of his students had already experienced before reaching the classroom. He saw his primary role as instilling caring behavior in his pupils. He felt his major impact was in giving the children an example of an "adult who's consistent, who's always there, who always comes through with what he said, then that's a new world for them."

The Corner

In 1995, he co-authored, with Simon, A Year in the Life of an Inner-City Neighborhood, the true account of a West Baltimore community dominated by a heavy drug market. Simon credits his editor John Sterling with the suggestion that he observe a single drug corner. It was named a Notable Book of the Year by The New York Times. An adaptation of the book, also called The Corner, was produced as a six-hour TV miniseries for HBO. The show received three Emmy Awards.

The Wire

Burns is a writer and co-creator (also with Simon) of the HBO series The Wire. They originally set out to create a police drama loosely based on Burns' experiences working on protracted investigations of violent drug dealers using surveillance technology. He had often faced frustration with the bureaucracy of the police department, which Simon equated with his own ordeals as a police reporter for the Baltimore Sun. Writing against the background of current events, including institutionalized corporate crime at Enron and institutional dysfunction in the Catholic Church, the show became "more of a treatise about institutions and individuals than a straight cop show."

They chose to take The Wire to HBO because of their existing working relationship from the 2000 miniseries The Corner. Owing to its reputation for exploring new areas, HBO was initially dubious about including a cop drama in their lineup, but eventually agreed to produce the pilot.

The theme of institutional dysfunction was expanded across different areas of the city as the show progressed. The second season focused on the death of working class America through examination of the city ports. The third season "reflects on the nature of reform and reformers, and whether there is any possibility that political processes, long calcified, can mitigate against the forces currently arrayed against individuals." Burns has called education the theme of the fourth season. The writing drew extensively on his experience as a teacher. Rather than solely focusing on the school system, the fourth season looks at schools as a porous part of the community that are affected by problems outside their boundaries. Burns states that education comes from many sources other than schools and that children can be educated by other means, including contact with the drug dealers they work for. The fifth and final season focuses on the media's coverage of crime and corruption in Baltimore, tapping into Simon's past with The Sun. Burns was nominated for the Writers Guild of America Award award for Best Dramatic Series at the February 2009 ceremony for his work on the fifth season. Simon and Burns collaborated to write the series finale "-30-". They were nominated for an Emmy Award in the category Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series for their work on the finale.

Generation Kill

Burns also collaborated with Simon on the miniseries Generation Kill for HBO.