About

Thank you so much for taking the time to come to the website for my English I, II, and Reading clasess. Please look around for helpful/hopefully inspiring information, links, games, and ideas focused on becoming an empowered reader/writer.

I’m here because sharing reading and writing experiences is one of my favorite things. I read and write constantly and always let students know I will never ask them to do more than I do myself. I’m an avid member of the Austin Public Library and encourage everyone to take advantage of the wonderful library resources we’re privileged with. I studied English Literature with a Creative Writing (fiction) emphasis at the University of California, Los Angeles. I’ve published multiple short stories, written a novel (as yet unpublished), and been involved in the writing and directing of two short film projects. After moving to Texas in 2005, I became a language arts teacher at Bailey Middle School in the fall of 2006 and taught both 6th and 7th grade language arts as well as creative writing and publication journalism electives over the past seven years. I’m super excited for my first year at Akins and am so honored to get to work with the soaring Eagles in the AHA academy.

I believe that the powers of literacy, thoughtfulness, and expression are fundamental doors to a truly free and confidence-filled life for the individual and society. As technology continues to make advances and the world becomes daily more interconnected, the ability to productively dialogue only becomes more important. Our children face incredible adventures, challenges, and obstacles, and I hope that we do our best to help them reach their fantastic potential to make the world a better community. As a teacher, I try to model positive communication skills, be open to listening and learning to and from every student, and encourage a richness of multiple perspectives and the ethic of effort and trying without worrying about a right answer. That said if there is anything you would like from me, please let me know!

Our classroom thrives when everyone is respectful of each other with no regard to seeming differences of person or opinion. We are equal. We all make mistakes. We all have brilliant successes. When we participate actively with intrinsic motivation, we can not only learn a lot from each other, but also have a lot of fun doing so. Anyone who makes their best effort each day will do wonderfully in our class. They’ll become a significantly better reader and writer, which will improve their ability to succeed in other classes and situations as well. Thus as we together become more flexible thinkers, our quality of life will improve. Also, sometimes, we might be a little goofy…

I’m so excited to work with you, be you student, parent, or other curious reader/writer!

Emerging from my hobbit hole for a trip to the library…

“ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ… Thas the alphabet. Twenty- six letters in all. Them letters make up words. Them words everything.” – Precious Jones from the novel Push by Sapphire

“‘Learning would spoil the best n—– in the world. Now,’ said he, ‘if you teach that n—– (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him/her. It would forever unfit him/her to be a slave. He/she would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his/her master. As to him/herself, it could do him/her no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him/her discontented and unhappy.’ These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty–to wit, (one person’s power to enslave another).” – From The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass