Experience Summary
Seasoned High School ELAR (English, Language Arts and Reading) Teacher, specializing in literary analysis, critical thinking and argumentation. While certified for secondary, I have experience working with elementary school students as well. All curriculum is personalized and determined through school work, test results, teacher comments, parental observations and needs-based assessments (if necessary). My goal as an educator is to expand on everything that works and change every component of everything that doesn't. I believe in teaching students in a manner that suits their needs not vice versa. Every lesson is meticulously planned. When teaching new material, the students learning style. Reteaching concepts involves a focus on the areas of weaknesses through repeated drills and exercises while tweaking areas of strength.
Teaching Style
Unorthodox is the best way to describe my teaching style. Unorthodox in that I will change my approach or activities based on student comprehension. Unorthodox in that I truly believe that for every student who is confused or doesn’t understand a concept, there is a teacher who didn’t do their job. My greatest strength lies in creating lessons and activities where students will want to engage. Engagement leads to a permanent investment. When a student is engaged by a lesson, they will remember that lesson. To introduce Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Cask of Amontillado,” my students played "Who's crazier: Edgar Allan Poe or Mrs. W’s Mom or Dad???” After reading a series of statements such as: “Removed tires from daughter’s car for talking back” “Married his first cousin,” students would guess if it was Poe or my mom/dad. The level of participation in class that day and the days that followed was through the roof. Students would make Shakespearean Slang Dictionaries/Thesauruses to make Shakespeare comprehensible or tolerable. By utilizing their everyday vernacular, they were able to apply it to the words and/or phrases they didn’t know. Every so often, I’ll get an email from one of my kids giving me the details of the Poe reference they heard or how they impressed their Lit professor with something they learned in my class.