Writing Rules-Where Old and New School Meet

Maura is a veteran middle and high school teacher who is Teachers College educated. She is the creator and teacher of Writing Rules. She has been a sixth grade Language Arts teacher for thirteen years. Prior to this experience, she has worked in the high school setting in New York City. Maura has a wealth of experience in financially-stable as well as more fiscally-challenged environments, urban and rural-suburban settings, and with early and late stage teenagers. This background allows her to come to education with a variety of very accessible, multi-disciplinary techniques. She will bring out the best in your students using novel approaches and exciting methods. See for yourself by downloading a free sample of her work.

Today's students are pop-culture savvy and any teaching technique presented to them should ideally reflect the interests and events that have shaped them. Stuffy grammar concepts with no context in students' real lives will quickly be forgotten. Their attention will increase if the subject matter is contextually more relevant to them. The ability to use their own influences to capture their attention is possible. The average teaching plans and tools, for the most part, do not create a sense of exhilaration and enthusiasm that would therefore encourage students to continue into higher education.

Scholarships for undergraduate and graduate level

Columbia University Teachers College, January 1999 Awarded Master of Arts in English Education Partial Scholarship Awarded The New School, December 1995 Awarded Bachelor of Arts in English Pen and Brush Club Award

Published poems: a day of may," Force 10, Sligo, Ireland; "Mossy Rocks," The Salmon Review, Clare, Ireland and Asylum, Kerry, Ireland. Appeared alongside Seamus Heaney, Nobel Laureate.