I currently teach in a Middle School in Glendale Heights, Illinois. I have worked with students from all ability levels and ethnic backgrounds. For the last 4 years I have been working with 6th, 7th & 8th Graders teaching Speech & Drama. I see every student in the building for 6 weeks. In class we focus on acting, public speaking and performance writing. During my teaching I have worked with many different styles of teaching and had my schedule for teaching change often. I taught English and Social Studies for the first 17 years of my career. I also direct the school plays and musicals having put up successful productions of Legally Blonde, Annie, Unplugged, Beauty & the Beast, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, Krazy Kamp and This is a Test. I also lead the Drama Club in fun Improv games and drama exercises each week.
Carefree and fun. I like to offer my students options whenever possible for projects. While I find quality tools in my textbooks I tend to veer away from the book often. I am working on having a much more student-center classroom. My students make a lot of the choices about what they learn. This year my English classes are using workshop time daily. I have an openng activity, a mini-lesson and than workshop time. Students are learning alot about time management during this time. I am getting a lot of time to work with small groups and re-teaching loops.
Having my students put so much work into the play I wrote for them was the best honor I could have received.
I have a BA in Elementary Education from Elmhurst College (2000), with endorsements in Language Arts, Social Science and Middle School. I have a Master's in English Studies also from Elmhurst College (2004). I take part in at least one workshop each year outside of my district in order to experience what is new in the world of education.
I love creating new ideas and plans for my students. I think the best thing I can do is learn from them so I often am asking them about how they learn and what they would like to do before creating lessons.
3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, Homeschool
English Language Arts, Creative Writing, Reading, Grammar, Vocabulary, Specialty, Science, Social Studies - History, Arts & Music, Music, Drama, Geography, Literature, Study Skills, Library Skills, Short Stories, Writing