You have successfully made it to Ms. Rotchford's class website! This is the place to get information about anything happening in my classes and the programs I advise.
This website's primary purpose is to be an entry point into the learning that will take place in my classes. This is the place where you can find general information about these courses. It details my teaching method, includes a digital and simplified version of my syllabi, and outlines the structure and progression of each unit and each lesson sequence for my courses. This is where you can find out what you missed if you were absent. This site exists to support a flexible educational experience to meet the changing needs of my students and their families/guardians. We will use Google Classroom in partnership with this website. Google Classroom will be the primary way students and I will communicate with each other. It will house daily assignments, due dates, and links to the specific resources, videos, etc. for any given lesson. Please make sure you add the Google Classroom course for any of my classes you are enrolled in.
Ms. Rotchford teaches English 11 and teaches/advises the Hope Squad. These classes are all inquiry-driven. Our goal, regardless of the class, is not perfection but persistence and growth as we pursue the understanding of important things and the enacting of important skills that are just as applicable in the larger world as they are in class.
Ms. Rotchford's Biography: Katie has been teaching English/Language Arts in Idaho since 2006. She is also the instructor/advisor of the Hope Squad at Boise High, a student led program and class designed to promote mental health awareness, self-care, and suicide prevention. She is a member of the National Council of Teachers of English and the National Journalism Education Association. She was the adviser to the Boise Highlights student newspaper for 13 years. She was a co-founder of the student-lead Writing Center at Mountain View High School in Meridian, Idaho and the Writing Assistance Center in Boise, Idaho where she served as its adviser for 12 years. Katie pursued her undergraduate education at Western Washington University and her graduate degree at the College of Idaho. Additionally, she is a Boise State Writing Project Fellow, a member of the National Writing Project, and the Idaho Coaching Network.
In her personal life, Katie is all about adventure and experience. She is an avid outdoors woman (hiking, skiing, mountain biking, rafting, camping, fly fishing, etc.). Generally, if it can be done outdoors, she is interested. She is also an avid traveler (some of her more memorable experiences include being stocked by cockroaches in Guatemala and being urinated on by the cheetah, pictured below, in Botswana). She has been to 4 continents and hopes to get to the others. She is a wife, a mom to a 8 and a half year old adrenaline junkie, baseball player and Minecraft enthusiast, and also to two fluffy dogs, and she kicks butt at fantasy football. In other words, she is a true renaissance woman.
You may contact Katie anytime through her email: katie.rotchfordhopkins@boiseschools.org