Personal Biography
I was born in Paterson, New Jersey. Shortly after my birth, my family relocated to Norman, Oklahoma where I grew up and attended college (Boomer Sooner anyone?) In 2012, I relocated to Nashville, Tennessee to attend graduate school. Following the completion of my master's degree in July 2013, I began my career as a classroom teacher with Edmond Public Schools. In 2014, I accepted a new position in Los Alamos, New Mexico, working for the #1 public high school in the state.
I have made a few journeys in the pursuit of education and skill. I have traveled to Santa Fe, New Mexico on three separate occasions to participate in the University of Oklahoma's "Summer in Santa Fe" program. Each visit concentrated on a different area of expertise: Chicano literature, advanced painting, and creative writing. On these trips, I have been privileged to see many areas of New Mexico- Taos, Chimayo, Madrid, Abiquiu, Albuquerque- and I have been able to use the local scenery, culture, history and artistic expression to inspire my own writing and painting. I look forward to incorporating these experiences and ideas into my classroom instruction, blending creativity with structure in student writing.
In 2010, I was accepted as a member of the "Honors at Oxford" program, one of extremely few education majors in attendance over the years. With this program, I studied abroad at Oxford University in the United Kingdom, joining Brasenose College and studying Shakespeare. During my time there, I was able to visit Stonehenge, Salisbury, Stratford-upon-Avon, Bath, London, and Edinburgh, Scotland. This opportunity only enhanced my love of literature with historical context and fervor to teach at the secondary level (how many other teachers can say they have sat in the same cafes where C. S. Lewis and J. K. Rowling wrote classics?)
In 2012, I enrolled in a course at Vanderbilt entitled "Literature of Social Transformation- The Civil Rights Movement," which opened my eyes to a wealth of history concerning the social changes that can be made with organized effort and perseverance. This class included a trip to Birmingham, Alabama to see the Civil Rights Institute and the site of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church Bombing that took place in 1964 and claimed the lives of four innocent girls during a time of
racial oppression. This sparked an interest in creating curriculum to incorporate instruction about the African American Civil Rights Movement in secondary English/language arts classrooms through poems, documentary clips, essays, articles, speeches, personal narratives, young adult novels and novels. it is a goal that this curriculum be completed and incorporated into my future classroom instruction.
Over the years I have become an avid reader of young adult literature, supporting my philosophy: if I want my students to be readers, I must be a reader too. I need to recommend a book to fit every child and converse with them about literature, showing my students that I am as passionate about reading as I want them to be. This quest to support literacy led me to pursue a master's degree in reading education at Vanderbilt University, hoping to find new ways to help the struggling readers in my classroom who need my help the most.
In 2013, I was honored to join the English II team at Edmond Memorial High School, teaching on-level and pre-advanced placement sophomore English. This teaching experience served as my first full time teaching position. I taught and managed class sizes as large as thirty students and as small as seventeen students, focusing on writitng skills, grammar, and identification and comprehension of elements of fiction, rhetorical devices and figurative language devices. I discovered my strengths in communication with parent communication, content knowledge and curriculum planning. I also was able to diagnose skills and aspects of my teaching performance that will continue to develop with time and experience. A highlight of my teaching experience with Edmond Public Schools was defending the newly adopted The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini and creating curriculum for this piece with the sophomore team.
Upon completion of my first year of teaching, I decided to relocate to New Mexico, indeed a "land of enchantment" which has always appealed to me. I accepted a position in the rural district of Los Alamos Public Schools as an English 10 and Honors English 10 teacher, as well as Assistant Debate Coach for the Hilltalkers. As New Mexico transitioned to Common Core State Standards, I helped shape new curriculum for the high school that is challenging and incorporates thought-provoking literature. In 2018, I took on revamping the Academic Skills Lab curriculum to take the course from a study hall to a second-tier intervention aimed at helping struggling students who might otherwise drop out of high school.
In 2019, I earned my National Board Certification in Adolescent/Young Adult Language Arts with the help of my school district. As of 2021, I have taken the helm of the Advanced Placement Language & Composition course after teaching it for 5 years. I have developed a strong passion for rhetoric and argumentation instruction as a way to nurture the student voice, enhance critical thinking, and strengthen the ability of students to support claims with credible evidence.