LitMaster Guides

I am a college professor with over 30 years of experience designing and teaching literature courses at all levels — from middle school-aligned content to upper-division university seminars. My classroom materials have been developed and refined across both in-person and online environments, including Canvas modules, literary analysis guides, vocabulary-building tools, and multimedia discussion activities. In addition to my work in middle school ELA resources, I bring deep expertise in AP-level instruction: I have served for several years on the College Board's review panel for the AP Spanish Literature and Culture exam, contributing to the development of national standards. My resources reflect that same commitment to academic precision — adapted for today's diverse classrooms.

My resources combine academic rigor with creative, tech-friendly approaches designed for today's learners. I believe great literature instruction should spark curiosity, build vocabulary in context, and give students genuine tools for critical thinking — not just comprehension checklists. Whether the classroom is in person or online, my units are structured but flexible: easy to adapt for different reading levels, pacing needs, and instructional styles. Every guide is designed so that teachers can pick it up and teach with confidence from day one — and students leave having actually engaged with the text, not just gotten through it.

Over the course of my academic career, I’ve been honored with several teaching awards, including recognition for excellence in undergraduate instruction at Columbia University. One of my most meaningful professional experiences has been serving on the College Board’s AP Spanish Literature and Culture exam review panel, where I contributed to the development and refinement of national standards. I’ve also mentored many students who later became educators themselves—some of whom now use my materials in their own classrooms. For me, the most rewarding moments come from watching students engage deeply with literature and film, and helping them develop the confidence to think critically and express themselves with clarity and purpose.

I hold a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from Columbia University and a D.Phil. in Language and Literary Theory from the Universidad de Valencia. My academic training includes appointments at Princeton University and the University of Sheffield (UK), and my doctoral work at Columbia was completed with Distinction.

My academic formation is rooted in comparative literature — the study of how texts speak to one another across languages, cultures, periods, and forms. That training has shaped everything about how I read, teach, and write about literature: always attentive to what a text is doing structurally and thematically, not just what it says on the surface. The novel has been at the center of my scholarly and teaching life for over three decades. I am drawn to the novel as a form precisely because of what it demands from readers — sustained attention, emotional investment, the ability to hold complexity and ambiguity — and because of what it gives back: a deeper understanding of human experience than almost any other art form can offer. That conviction drives every resource I create. Whether the novel in question is a Newbery Honor survival story taught in sixth grade or a canonical text taught in a university seminar, I bring the same close-reading discipline: tracing how language works, how characters develop, how structure carries meaning, and how themes accumulate across a narrative arc. My resources are built on the belief that literary thinking is a skill that can be taught — and that the earlier students are given genuine tools for engaging with texts, the more powerful and lasting that engagement becomes. The novel study guides I create for middle school are not simplified versions of university-level analysis. They are carefully scaffolded invitations into exactly the kind of reading that lasts a lifetime.