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I have always known the key to learning started
with authentic language experiences in writing and
reading. On the job my first year with thirty-five
first graders, I realized how inadequately
prepared I was to teach and that pushed me to my
next step: getting an M.A. in Reading. From the
beginning, I knew how important it was to
integrate reading and writing so whenever I
attended conferences or took classes, I sought out
new ways of blending the language arts.
In 1986 I participated in The Greater Kansas City
Writing Project. This wonderful program not only
helped me become a better writer myself but put me
in touch with Heinemann Press and therefore with
many of the great teachers of writing like Donald
Graves, Ken Macrorie, Donald Murray, Lucy Calkins,
Barry Lane, Regie Routman, and Carol Avery. This
course affirmed what I already knew: that students
need daily opportunities to develop personal
experiences into written pieces backed by a rich
immersion in authentic literature.
Over the last six years, I have appreciated
working with and learning from Steve Peha. His
strategies and procedures have helped me
understand the implementation of effective reading
and writing programs at all grade levels.
Now, more than ever, I am committed to providing
authentic literacy experiences to children every
day. I do this by presenting workshops,
institutes, and model teaching in classrooms.
Because of the results I have seen, and the
dramatic difference this has made in increasing
student motivation, this recent work has been the
most rewarding of my entire career.
My Philosophy
My calling as a teacher inspires me to create a
web of knowing, living, and learning. The
classroom is a community of learners, of which I
myself am a part, a place where we nurture
curiosity and explore life through language. When
that community gels and discoveries are made,
students gain independence as the teacher within
them awakens.
Education is a spiritual journey. As Parker Palmer
writes in The Courage to Teach, “. . . we
answer the heart’s longing to be connected with
the largeness of life — a longing that animates
love and work, especially the work called
teaching.”
Another text that speaks to me comes from Robert
Frost’s brief poem, The Secret Sits: “We
dance round in a ring and suppose, but the Secret
sits in the middle and knows.” As a community we
engage in the attempt to know the secrets of life;
this is what I want to facilitate for students.
As babies we come into the world with brains wired
for speech, and so we learn to talk long before we
enter school. However, writing and reading are so
new to our species that literacy is not an innate
part of this wiring. So we put the mysterious
expressions of written language in the center of
our community and struggle together to unravel
their secrets. It’s hard work, yet so rewarding
because, as we develop mastery, we experience the
joy of creation and connection.
For me, it is the web — the connections made, the
mysteries pursued, the secrets discovered — that
creates the amazing experience we call school, and
in that experience, the teacher awakens within us
and moves us forward on our journey. And this is
why I teach.
My Resume
Education
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MA, Elementary Education/Reading, UMKC, Kansas
City, MO, 1972
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BA, Elementary Education, University of
Missouri, Columbia, MO, 1965
Work Experience
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Modeling Writers’ Workshop in Classrooms,
1999-2003
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UMKC Instructor for Continuing Education,
1998-2002
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Reading/Writing Workshops for Teachers,
1988-2002
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Writing/Reading Resource for Teachers, 1999-2002
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Title I Teacher Resource, Independence, MO
School District, 1993-1999
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Title I Reading Teacher, Elementary,
Independence, MO School District, 1978-1999
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Elementary Classroom Teacher, Independence, MO
School District, 1967-1978
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Elementary Classroom Teacher, Pattonsburg, MO
School District, 1965-1966
Presentations
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Teacher Workshops, 1988-2003
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Title I National Convention, New Orleans, 1997
State
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Missouri State International Reading
Association, Young Authors’ Chair, 1994-1996
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MAP Communication Arts Test Development,
1994-1995
District
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Young Writers’ Conference Chair, 1993-1999
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Independence International Reading Association,
President, VP-Programs, Sec., Newsletter,
1979-1999
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Reading Fair Steering Committee, 1993-1999
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IRA Convention Delegate, 1986-1999
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Teacher of the Year Finalist, 1994
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