Get Creative with Mrs. Ruiz

Mrs. Ruiz is an English teacher here at Hillcrest who has been teaching for the past 17 years. During her time here, alongside her teaching English to students, she has also been teaching Senior and Sophomore English, Film Studies and Creative Writing. Currently she's a part of the SLC of Teachers of Tomorrow. 

One of the many things that she teaches is Film Studies. As Mrs.Ruiz stated, “It is a wonderful thing to expose students to popular films/trends in American culture, historical events etc. I like to screen films for students that they’ve never seen before (a personal enjoyment is watching their reactions and the concept of suspension of disbelief unfold in real time) and there is a writing component that focuses on answering those questions like what does it mean to be human and examining how relationships look in different places and times. In past courses, we have looked at different types of animation, explored the history of cinema, focused on directors’ studies, camera angles and point of view (the more technical side of film); one year I had students make their own puppets- that was so much fun! Students also have a good time making films in this class. I like to change the content/film each year to keep it fresh.” 

Some fun facts that you may not know about Mrs. Ruiz is that she loves to cook and she loves to host for friends and family. She's a big soccer mom. She's very invested in soccer games with her kids. She loves reading (favorite genres are sci-fi and fantasy), she loves film and music. She loves handball. She loves listening and helping others, and she has a hard time saying no to people.