About Your Teacher
Second: Gulls feeding on chips (French Fries) near the west coast of England.
Third: A stream in The Yorkshire Dales.
Bottom: Musicians honoring one of their own at a pub wake in Galway.
My purpose for being a teacher is to explore with students the depths of meaning in quality literature while giving them opportunities to think about, explore, and discuss concepts important to their lives. As they find their own adult voices, my hope is that my students will use words to change the world.
To begin, my family is very important to me. In my immediate family, I am married to my husband of thirty-five years, Michael. I have a son who is an electrician and a daughter who attends an Episcopal Seminary in Berkeley, California. My mom lives in Hampton, S.C. along with two married brothers and their families. My brothers, brother-in-law, and sisters-in-law both have an assortment of children, giving me a wonderful collection of nieces and nephews. I even have seven great-nieces, and four great-nephews.
As another part of my extended family, I am privileged to be a member of The Bread Loaf Teacher Network, an organization I helped found in 1993. As a student at Middlebury College, I received a Masters Degree in English in 1997, and in 2008, I completed a Master of Letters (MLitt) in Writing and the Teaching of Writing. There are many teachers that I count as close friends that I met through the Bread Loaf Program, but none more so than Dixie Goswami. While in the program, I even got to study at Oxford University one summer with a distinguished Oxford don!
Additionally, one of my great-grandmothers was full-blooded Cherokee. I believe I owe a lot to that ancestry. For example, I love being close to the Earth by working in my garden. I also have a huge collection of houseplants. My other hobbies include music, writing, reading, web page design, and travel. This past June and July, I traveled to England where I stayed with the Northumbria Community for ten days. We also toured the Lake Country and made a four day stop in Galway, Ireland before returning home. I have traveled to Europe more than seventeen times, and I hope I inspire my students to want to see the world. It is an amazing place!
Finally, I am a National Board Certified teacher and was the Teacher of the Year for Northwest Middle School in 2004. I also became a Top Ten Finalist for Greenville County Schools that year. I have served on the Secondary Steering Committee for the National Council of Teachers of English for two terms. I actually retired in 2016 after teaching for 34 years in South Carolina, but I decided to come back to the profession I love after taking some time for myself. My husband and I live in Landrum and are happily owned by three dogs: Juneau Belle, Holly Jeanne, and Two Tone.