Thursday, February 11, 2010

Miscellany about Morgan



I clearly love alliteration...perhaps it elevates me into from geeky-cool into just geeky, but what can I say? I'm getting my Master's in English, so all things literary are fascinating to me. This is my second semester as a graduate student; I am hoping to be finished next May so I get a real, full-time job and have money again. I graduated in January 2005 from UW-O, and while some think it's strange that I returned here for my Master's, the real reason is this: when I applied for grad school, I lived and worked in Appleton, which would have made it very easy for me to take a night class here and there. Then I got hired as a teacher and moved, putting grad school on the back burner. After I got laid off last spring, I re-activated my student status and voila! Here I am.

This is my first semester as a grad assistant, and I am enjoying the 'behind the scenes' part of a college classroom. It's great experience, as I'd like to teach at the post-secondary level when my degree is complete.

Here's the Cliff Notes version: I think Cliff Notes enable laziness and it should be illegal to publish them...censorship of any kind riles me up...I love to read...have 2 younger sisters (see pictures)...went to Fiji for two weeks in January (and didn't want to leave!)...grew up in Portage...love classic rock, "Lost," "General Hospital," and "Glee"...am emphasizing my degree on African American literature...and am an otherwise fascinating mix of caffeine, pop culture, and sarcasm.

A little bit about my teaching experience: my job was at a (now-defunct) charter school in Sheboygan. I worked with 28-35 students labeled with everything: at-risk, ADHD, ELL, ED, LD, and probably more I wasn't aware of. These were the naughtiest of the naughty students--they were withdrawn from their home school, usually for gang violence/fighting or drug/alcohol reasons, and sent to my school. While only having that many students may seem like a breeze, the reality is that I taught grades 6-12 and both English and history. Basically, every student had their own learning plan, which involved credit recovery. So, for each student, I created English and history lessons, often times multiples in each area because they were at risk of not graduating on time. My demographic was almost all male--I had 5 female students; almost all my students were Hispanic or black; and the issues I had are nothing than can be taught in a methods or behavior management class. After months of frustrating and bizarre behavior from one student, he was finally diagnosed as schizophrenic, which involved massive amounts of time, meetings, reports, and attempts before figuring it out. It was an untraditional and unconventional experience, but I was pretty devastated when Sheboygan cut my program (as well as myself and 45 other teachers!) However, it lead me to grad school, so in the long run it was all a blessing in disguise.

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