Charlene Tess taught English and creative writing to high school students and adults for over thirty-four years. She was the Secondary Teacher of the Year for Ysleta Independent School District in 1998, and one of the five finalists for Region XIX Teacher of the Year. She is listed in Who's Who in America. Since 1996, she has worked as an educational consultant helping other teachers use her grammar workbook, Simple Steps to Sentence Sense. Mrs. Tess now devotes her time to writing fiction and teaching fiction writing to adults. She is the author of three novels, and a non-fiction grammar workbook, and has published short fiction and numerous articles in magazines and in short story collections. You can read excerpts from her novels and order her books from her website: www.authorsden.com/charlenetess Charlene and her husband Jerry spend their free time traveling to promote her books and visiting their two daughters and their three grandsons.
I believe that the key to learning grammar and language skills is the sequence in which each concept is presented to the students. The grammar books our school used were hard to use and confusing, so I wrote my own lessons. My students worked in groups and used teacher and peer prepared study sheets. I combined those sheets into a grammar workbook that many teaches in Texas use with their classes. Simple Steps to Sentence Sense is also available from my website: www.authorsden.com/charlenetess.
The National Council of Teachers of English named the creative writing magazine my classes produced as one of the top 25 in the United States. The Ysleta District in El Paso, Texas, named me Teacher of the Year in 1998, and I was one of the five finalists for Region XIX teacher of the year. I am the author of three novels, a non-fiction grammar book, and numerous short stories and articles.
I attended elementary school, high school, and college in El Paso, Texas. I have a Bachelor of Science in English and history. I worked as a consultant for a publishing company and traveled throughout Texas and surrounding states doing workshops and showing teachers how to use my grammar book: Simple Steps to Sentence Sense. I also worked for one year after my retirement as an educational consultant for the Ysleta Independent School District.
I am married and have two daughters and three grandsons.