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Kindergarten
Kindergarten was about coloring and taking naps. You could say kindergarten was about purposeful playtime. Reading and writing was not taught until 1st grade. My kindergarten teacher retired the year the state required kindergarten to teach reading and writing. -
First Grade
My first grade teacher did a poor job teaching me to read and write. I remember my mom having to hire a reading specialist so I would not be so far behind. The reading specialist blamed my first grade teacher for being a poor teacher. My first grade teacher impacted me the most negatively because she used negative choice words. -
Second Grade
My second grade teacher, Mrs. Hobbs was the first teacher who loved to focus on writing. She would have us write stories and read them in class. I loved reading my story to others and I often made stuff up as I pretended to read my story. -
Third Grade
My mom hired a specialized reading tutor that had me read out loud to my mom for 20 minutes. -
Fifth Grade
My fifth grade teacher was Mrs. Newsome. She was an awesome writing teacher. She loved to teach writing. I began to enjoy writing because of her. She picked my essay to share with the class out of all the other students. Through the years, she used my paper to read and younger generations would tell me she read my story to them in class. I remember to this day how she taught us the story arc on the chalkboard. -
Seventh Grade
I scored low on a bench mark test for reading. The school put me in a specilized reading class. Mrs. Winters helped me learn how to take standerdized test. She helped me understand reading concepts such as the main idea, Cause and Effect, and the climax of a story. I loved this class and from this point forward, I always scored top percentile on state test. This class propelled me to be in National Honor Society and eventually top 10% of my class in High School. -
Ninth Grade
Mr. Williams was the first teacher who made us write in daily journals. Writing everyday in daily journals helped my writing skills for the year. I scored really high on the state exam for the writing section of the test. My teacher recognized me in front of the class. -
Junior Year
I had Mrs. Kerbow for my Writing/Reading teacher. She was awesome. I loved her because she was so good with teenagers. She taught me to quote three sources on every paper I wrote. She made reading and writing fun because she had such a fun personality. I looked forward going to her class each day. -
Senior Year
I had a poor reading/writing teacher my Senior year in high school. She offered very little feedback on assignments and did not teach too many reading/writing concepts. She basically was a cruise (easy) teacher because so many of us already had one foot out the door ready to graduate. She actually told me I was a poor writer on one assignment. I believe I would of given her better work if she could have used more postive word choices. -
Freshman Year in college
My freshman writing teacher in college picked my essay to read in front of class. She read my story to show exemplary work. She was a great writing teacher that gave me lots of positive feedback on my writing. I was able to develop a higher level of writing because of her. -
Masters Work
Starting my Masters at TWU has been a complete different experience than my undergraduate work. I was a Finance major so most of my work had to do with math formulas and theories. I took my test on scantron and had to write very little in my undergraduate studies. My first class at TWU, I had to write a reseach paper. It had been years since I had written anything that needed to be graded. I have learned to enjoy writing again and I will continue to grow as a reader and writer.
