Memoir Guru

I love teaching and creating curriculum. In everything I do, I create well-ordered, equitable communities so the faculty, students, and community I serve become empowered to achieve far more than they ever thought possible.

Conversational and Socratic. I believe teaching is based on building productive relationships within the classroom. Students have to like and trust you in order to learn -- they need to know they have your attention, and that you know who they are. Thus I greet each student by name every day as they come into my classroom, and I am intensely interested in the personal narratives they write for me. All of the curriculum I build is based on this teaching philosophy.

1) Earned Highly Effective Rating for Teaching, Justice High School, 2023; 2) Earned Exemplary Rating for Teaching, Stafford High School, 2020, 2021 & 2022; 3) Designated Special Recognition Adviser, Columbia Scholastic Press Association, 2021, part of the National High School Journalism Teacher of the Year program; 4) Won Honorable Mention in national Skillful Teacher Video Contest, 2020.

LICENSES: 1) Leadership Endorsement Program, 2021. Longwood University. Certified in Nov. 2021; 2) VA Postgraduate Professional Teaching License, 2019-29; 3) Endorsed in English, History, Social Studies, and Family & Consumer Sciences (7-12); 4) Previously certified in Ohio and Washington State. EDUCATIONAL RECORD: 1) M.A. in English, 1999. Bread Loaf School of English, Middlebury College. Spent summers of 1996 and 1999 studying at Oxford University campus. Completed MA thesis on Shakespeare’s minor players; 2) B.A. in English and History, 1989. Malone College. Completed history thesis on religious revival in my Conservative Mennonite community. Awarded Outstanding Senior in English & Publications.

I get bored easily and am always seeking new challenges. I have taught in Mennonite, Catholic, independent, and public schools, as well as for the University of Washington (UW in the High School), Northern Virginia Community College (NOVA), and the University of Phoenix. I have written for Huff Post.