About

For as long as I can remember, I wanted to be a teacher. At least, that is the most rational career choice aside from being a best-selling author or actress. I have always loved school and I have always loved to read, so why not enter a field where I'm in a place that I love, doing what I love.

As an English educator, I believe that my job is teach children what it means to be human. Students come from all walks of life, and while they have so much opportunity to learn from others in the digital age, there is still a disconnect between students and the world around them. I firmly believe that English education can bridge that gap as students can interact with texts that can unlock new worlds by learning from characters and experiences that they have never had, thought, or imagined could be possible. In the end, what literature offers our students are opportunities to build a kinder, and more empathetic generation.

Not only do I want students to learn from stories, I want to encourage students to embrace being storytellers. In this digital age, students are creating digital narratives in their daily lives: tweeting, Snapchat-ing, posting on Instagram, but when have they ever been asked to tell their story in a school setting? The English classroom cannot simply be a space for sharing stories from the canon and formerly silenced voices, it must be a space where we challenge our students to acknowledge their experiences and build the confidence to want to tell their own stories to engage in meaning-making.

When I'm not in the classroom, I am catching up on reading (the stack of books never end), working on puzzles, watching Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy, or hanging out at Cinema Detroit or the Detroit Institute of Art.