"I graduated from Appalachian State University with a BA in English, and Hunter College with an MFA in Creative Writing (Poetry).

Currently I teach IB Film, IB Theory of Knowledge, and Honors English 10 at a high school in upper Manhattan.

As an educator, my main job is to privilege revision and writing process. This ethos spans the entire year. In Film, students prepare a well-edited portfolio that includes nine minutes of footage, a Textual Analysis Essay and a Comparative Analysis video essay. Students engage with a diverse array of theorists and voices: Andrei Tarkovsky, Yasujiro Ozu, Mark Fisher, Ousmane Semene, bell hooks etc.

My classroom management philosophy is simple: the teacher must be consistently insistent. My students know the expectations by heart, because I am the same person every single class. I am my authentic self — slightly goofy and extremely nerdy, but demanding of a rigorous intellectual environment. My classroom requires little-to-no detentions or discipline. The students know the disciplinary penalties, but they are self-directed and engaged. When we do writing activities, I write alongside them and engage in the creative struggle. There is a sense of community. I am very fortunate to have cultivated a classroom that loves to learn and fail productively." less...