May Laughton's Professional Blog

Each high school student should enter college life with the best knowledge of how to write a substantial essay. To teach knowledge that student's cannot constructively use, is pointless. When students are able to work alone to problem solve, they have the confidence needed to complete a task. I believe in empowering students with various tools they can apply in creative problem solving, and help affirm confidence in their own ability to evalute literature. Through imparted knowledge, high school students should approach their own writing in a way that is both coherent, and viable in a higher educated setting.

My goal is to cover all the points needed for state assessments while maintaining an entertaining atmosphere among the students. Students can first learn to comprehend what they are studying by educating on the many genre's, styles, history, and author techniques involving classic works. Learning the language structure of the written works, as well as vocabulary, is a good place to begin when introducing a new unit. I will use group interactions, and performance studies for in depth characer analysis. The technology I use will foster those with learning disabilities, as well as visual learning. By using video as hands on learning projects and read aloud before classroom discussion.

I believe that all students should be able to comprehend and evaluate our classic works, and that teacher can accomodate those student's with learning disabilities through tehnology. I will use spoken vocabulary, and audio recordings for those who are effected with reading disabiities. I will allow for additional lectures found on Itunes U that students can consider when forming their own opinion. The broad range of audio will broaden the student's knowledge.

I will use Skype to interact with other English classroom around the world. I will encourage and assign personal blogging to exericise daily writing habits. I'm interested in using the students own tech devices to teach them how to further their understanding in the art of language and research. I will assign performance projects that students can recreate chapters from our works studied and post the videos on YouTube.

I will also encourage students to use the free Google tools like google docs, and google presentation because their work can be accessed by any computer with an internet connection. I'm also partial becuase you do not need to change the format from works to word, as needed with MS Vista. Using technology appeals to students and prepares them for an ever changing world ahead and their success.

First of all, I truly love to learn! I love the arts and I love to read and research about uncharted territory. This was instilled in me by my own tenth grade English/Lit teacher. I want to teach because of the positive change that teachers can influence on their students futures. I believe that creativity has fallen short in our youth in exchange for higher test score. I'm certain that I can maintain a balance between creativity and high test scores for students by assessing students strengths and weakness, and creating lesson plans that will appeal to all learning styles.

I have two years experience as a math and reading tutor in our local schools. I have tutored "upper level" students from UMS Wright, writing essays in literature and history for two years. I have also worked with an ELL student in reading and math for one year.