Instruction
I love teaching, and no matter what I have pursued, I have found myself back to it in some form or another. Sometimes I think of it as a sort of Rosetta Stone; the person who loves and wants to teach will find a way to make it work even if that means learning a new language or system to transmit ideas. She will use “Teaching” as the key to decoding the other media (whether it’s a literal new language or a new form of engaging with the profession).
Currently, I run my own consulting and independent-teaching company, “The Human Element Education”, and I work in-person and remotely with students of all ages on their writing across disciplines in English, their interpretation of text (also across disciplines and modes), and their studies of Spanish and history. I can also guide them in their music. I tailor each lesson to that student and skills the individual seeks to strengthen. Please reach out to me if you would like to work with you, as a student or as a person or organization in need of instructional and learning design or the application thereof or with help designing your / their own.
Why “The Human Element”? I do not use artificial intelligence in my own writing, editing, or curriculum / curricular design and can help you work independently of it as well as recognize when it is and is not used in context and when it is and is not useful and appropriate. Moreover, this is human-to-human work in an increasingly technologically-oriented and digitized, isolated world where that connection is ever rarer and more precious.
I have spent nearly 15 years working in the classroom as an educator of English, writing, Spanish, journalism, yearbook, health, and creative writing at various independent schools and non-profits including Harvard-Westlake, The Urban Media Foundation, Milken Community School, Brentwood School, and The Bishop’s School. I have taught and advised grades 7-12, designed all of my courses, and used the Harkness and Socratic Seminar methods around a table and with desks in addition to a rows-of-desks format. I have taught with and without technology and in person, online, and in a hybrid format.
I have tutored privately for 20 years, doing so, as previously mentioned, for students of all ages for English, writing, history, Spanish, standardized tests, college- and graduate school-admissions essays, middle- and high school-essays (admissions-related and curricular) and grammar.
Current Tutoring and Consulting: I teach discrete lessons and offer discount packages for English, writing, Spanish, and history, online and with students elementary school-aged to adult. Please reach out to inquire on teaching or curriculum, curricular, instructional, learning, and UX design. You can reach out here for support in any of these areas, and I look forward to hearing from you!
Some Additional Background
In addition to course instruction, I have overseen schools’ student editorial staffs, their non-fiction magazines, newspapers, news magazines, yearbooks, senior books, and supplements. As mentioned, I have worked as an advisor to students grades 7-12, student and family affinity groups, and served on numerous committees and panels.
Among the classes I have designed, I have offered various iterations of English grades 8-12: “Myth, Magic, and Folklore in Literature” grades 11-12, “Sheroes: Lady Heroes in Myth and Legend” grade 12, “Creative Writing” grades 8 and 12, “Marginalized Voices” grade 12, “Journalism” grades 9-12, “Yearbook” grade 9-12, “Pagan Studies” (co-taught with a colleague in the history department and including harp lessons with those of literature and writing) for grade 11, “North American Literature” grade 11, “British Literature” grade 10, “Literature & Composition” grade 9, “Analytical Writing Across Modes” grade 9 and 10, and “Modes of Expression” grade 10, and comparative literature grades 9-12.
I have taught works from around the world and across time and guided students through their expression, analytical and creative, poetic and in prose.
A strong believer in interdisciplinary teaching- and learning, I encourage students to make connections to other media and disciplines, and I do so in my teaching, myself, using music, context, history, etymology, other languages, science, math, film, and visual art in my courses. I have long written music to literary passages and retelling core stories and themes within texts, and I have brought my music into my classroom, in person and online, to make the works come alive for my students in new and very old ways and to encourage them to take ownership of the texts, themselves.
At their best, these works help us understand what it means to be human (something so at stake right now), and further comprehending and interacting with them creatively enhances that intellectual and visceral understanding.
Students have shared they enjoy experiencing these literary pieces in their original form but with a contemporary twist. Additionally, pupils of mine have, as a class, written fantasy novels, cookbooks, and short story collections, and, individually, harp and ukulele songs, raps and choreographed dances, comic strips and paintings, and emulation writings, in addition to other styles of works.
In 2019 and in person, I spoke and performed at SXSW Edu with a talk titled, “Teaching the Bardic Tradition as a Bard.” I have also presented at the Associazione Europea di Musica e Comunicazione’s virtual 2020 conference (which recently released a book and album that includes my prose-related and musical work), and the New Chaucer Society’s 2021’s virtual expo and conference, where I sang and spoke and submitted a portfolio of written materials. It was there I performed my original 12 minute retelling of “The Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale” (“The Wife of Bath: Alysoun’s Tale”) for the first time. That fall, I presented about that story and song at Argentina’s Universidad Nacional de Cuyo and wrote an article about teaching literature with and via music for teaching journal, Pedagogy and Profession.
A believer in collaboration, I have enjoyed mentoring and being mentored by and working, co-teaching, and even playing in a band with colleagues over the years.
Like most teachers, I love being a student and continue to take classes, myself. I have recently taken classes on updated instructional design for our contemporary educational needs, grant writing, and copy writing. Additionally, in my years as an educator, I have also done professional development at Cambridge University, UCLA, UCSD, Bard College, Santa Monica College, Cal State Long Beach, DailyOm, Udemy, Mind Body Green, Associazione Europea di Musica e Communication, The New Chaucer Society, and USC, as well as other institutions.
Below, you can see and listen to a Spotify playlist of original music I have written to works of literature or retelling their stories that I have used or someone can use in the classroom to help students further connect to the texts.
