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Writing my Name
I remember being able to write my name for the first time; I attend a Montessori Pre-School for 2 years where my love for words and writing first began. I would write my E's with about 5 to 7 dashes instead of just 3, but I always remember trying to fill up the entire space with as many dashes as I could to make my letter E -
Period: to
Time Span
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Reading for the First Time
I was between 4 and 5 years old and I was sitting in the cart at the grocery store with my mom; I was staring at the freezer section sign and finally blurted out "THE BIG FREEZE" and my Mom almost burst into tears. I felt so proud that I could finally read something on my own -
Summer Reading
I absolutely hated summer reading. For me, I always enjoyed reading books in school with my classmates or having 1-2 chapters assigned at a time. Asking a 2nd grader to take time away from their summer to sit and read was not my idea of learning anything; it was almost a form of punishment and a race to finish before September rolled around -
First Big Research Project
I remember in 6th grade I was able to choose a controversial topic of my choice and write my first big research paper, citing and all, about the topic. I chose Euthanasia, other wise known as mercy killing. Not only was I absolutely fascinated by the topic, I could not believe how many books and websites I was able to discover to contribute to my writing process. It was almost difficult to condense my paper into the confines of the project. This was a major turning point for me in my writing. -
APA
I remember the first year of high school during freshman year that I learned about APA and other types of citations when using references. As if it wasn't hard enough to consolidate my writing, now I had to specifically order my references alphabetically and follow a protocol for those too? I eventually got used to it, but it was still such a tedious task, especially after already completing my papers. -
Romeo and Juliet vs. West Side Story
Sophomore year of high school I was privileged enough to be in the Honors English class with a wonderful teacher named Mrs. Lang. She pushed me to think in ways I had never opened my mind to before. One being the stories of Romeo and Juliet paralleled with West Side Story. The book we read actually had both stories within the same piece of writing and we read them one after the other, comparing the two and then watching the movies afterwards. It was a great way to honor two pieces of work -
APA: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly
Senior year of college all students in my major (Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology) were required to take an entire course and seminar about the world of APA writing and citations. We were all given the same topic to research and report the results of and were responsible for writing a continuous research paper over the course of the entire semester. I have never felt so stunted or limited in my writing style than I did in this class. I passed with barely a C; it makes me cringe to this day -
Special Eduction: My Happy Place
I had always known working with children with special needs and education was my calling, but it wasn't until I was able to take a special ed elective course at the end of my college career that I was truly able to see the light. In the class, our professor let us perform our own interviews with special education providers, make crafts that represented our personalities and working styles and let us write the way we wanted to write about our experiences through the assignments. -
Lesson Planning
One of my graduate courses and internships required me to write and create lesson plans about preschool and kindergarten-age students achieving their IEP goals and teaching them about the reading process. This is where my love of writing and teaching melted together for a great success. My professors responded positively to my work and I knew that teaching was where I was meant to be. I have never been more confident in a line of work than where I am today -
Teaching Kids How to Read
One of my graduate courses solely focused on the reading process for children with special needs and learning disabilities. We were to create one lesson plan for one activity and student in teaching them about the sounds and meanings of letters and eventually, words. It was only then, after I had tirelessly put so much work and effort into this one lesson plan for one activity, that I realized how much responsibility and influence educators have on literacy in education.