Hi, and welcome to my podcast Web site!
Nearly everything you need to know about Michelle in fewer than 100 bullet points:
- I’m originally from Allentown, Pennsylvania, known for Dorney Park and that one Billy Joel song that haunts everyone who hails from Allentown. I lived in Long Island for just over eight years before coming back to the Lehigh Valley.
- I graduated from the State University of New York at Stony Brook in May 2007 with a B.A. in English. Currently I am pursuing my M.A. in English (with a concentration in writing and rhetoric) from Long Island University in Brooklyn, New York. I have completed all my coursework for the M.A., and am currently revising my thesis.
- It will shock you to know that both my parents are teachers (although Dad has retired), as was my grandmother. This makes me a second generation teacher on my father’s side, and a third generation teacher on my mother’s side. I’m very proud of this, but I hasten to add that I did not go into teaching out of family pressure, or for any other reason than my love of teaching and my desire to provide students with the type of teacher support I seldom got. I went back to college in my late 20s because I needed time to figure out where I belonged professionally.
- It was my introduction to tutoring that really led to my desire to teach. It was at a writing center where I first fell in love with teaching, in no small part because of the wonderfully supportive director who mentored me. I love teaching, but I would also be extremely happy directing a writing center.
- I’m certified to teach English, grades 7-12, in the state of New York, and until recently all my teaching experiences have been in New York City, primarily Manhattan, the Bronx, and Brooklyn.
- In the Fall 2008 semester I taught ENG 16: Freshmen Composition at LIU. During the Spring 2010 semester, I taught ENG 100 (Fundamentals of Writing) and ENG 105 (College English I) at Lehigh Carbon Community College; this summer I’ll be teaching three online ENG 105 classes.
I have an interest in the connections between writing, writing centers, and technology, and am always considering new ways to combine blogs and other media with writing. (This, incidentally, is the subject of my M.A. thesis.) This podcast is an attempt to determine the best way to do that as I try any means possible to utilitze technology to get my students to become stronger writers.
