As a teacher with over twenty years experience, I've had the privilege of dealing with a wide variety of students at various levels of literacy. My educational emphasis is on literature, plays, stories, and poetry. I have also conducted classes in creative writing.
In my own schooling, I took a class in teaching reading in content areas for other subjects (identifying key words, ideas, and phrases to help students focus on the question being asked, and to weed out unnecessary information). I also have several online tools available that help students with research papers and test preparation.
I am a member of ASCD, PASCD (Assoc. for Supervision and Curriculum Development and its local PA chapter), the The National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE), and Library of America (LOA).
I have a Bachelor's in Broadcast Communications including theater, audio/video production, and film. Currently, I am pursuing a M.Ed at Strayer University here in the Lehigh Valley area and working on my state certification through the American Board for Certification for Teacher Excellence, a state recognized online program affiliated with Point Park University in Pittsburgh.
Overall, I find the idea of teaching how to take a test, instead of how to master a skill, a waste of everyone's time. The same skills are taught year after year with the same dismal results for some students because they only remember the skill in order to take the test, and once the test is done, immediately forget what it is they studied.
Through WyzAnt I have recently worked with high school students for vocabulary and test prep, and adult students returning to school who want to work on their writing skills.
It is my goal with every student to get to the level of skill mastery you will need to be successful for the long term, not just for the test.
I look forward to working with you.
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