I started teaching and tutoring as a retail employee in Cleveland, teaching people how to use the technology I sold. From there, I worked in the Writing Center at John Carroll, then taught composition. I taught composition while in graduate school at UW-Milwaukee, and I spent a considerable amount of time teaching technology - in a sense - through a customer service job at a big cell-phone company. I taught 5th grade in Chicago Public Schools, worked as a substitute teacher in CPS, and finally moved into a middle-school science and reading position in the northwest suburbs, where I recently began my 10th year as a classroom teacher. I love to teach, and I think that my teaching experience is diverse enough to make virtually any subject - and any audience - within reach. My favorite areas, though, are those that are fundamental to everything else (in my opinion) - reading and writing. I finished a Masters in Reading Education at Olivet Nazarene University, and I am also a certified Reading Specialist. I hope to eventually pursue a doctorate and advanced research into the complex and changing intersections between literacy and technology. To me, this is the most practical and relevant area that I can focus on, and it also happens to fit my passions and my strengths. I love to write, and I love to teach writing because of what it helps me learn about my students and about writing itself.

Asian Cinema, Home Improvement, YA Fiction, Literacy and Technology, Learning and Video Games, History and Culture in the Great Depression, Invasive Species/Ecology, Frank Lloyd Wright, William Faulkner