American Hearts and Minds

I have 19 years of experience as an "English/History" teacher. While I have taught British Literature and Composition and world geography, my primary focus has been American Studies through courses in American Literature and Composition, American History, AP English Language, AP Macroeconomics, AP US Government, Journalism, and a Writers Workshop. I teach at the The Heritage School, a K-12 College Prep School in Newnan, Georgia. My son is in son is a sophomore at Heritage so I am taking a turn at teaching Middle School Social Studies. (It's good to give him some space!) Additionally, I have 13 years of experience at the Central Educational Center in Newnan. CEC is a partnership between our county school system, the technical college system, and the local business/industry community. Its mission was 21st workforce development, and, as an employee of the school system I taught American Literature and Composition so that the students could meet their core curriculum requirements while pursuing an active work-study or high tech vocational protocol. In each class, I taught AP level students alongside general and collaborative level students. This charter school is a nationally replicated model for educational and industry collaboration. Prior to that I did fundraising and development work for a technical college and for the American Diabetes Association.

I teach the American experience through nuance and broad strokes. While pedagogical principles are evident in my curriculum, my methods are designed to instill passion for and appreciation of the rhetoric, themes, human frailty, human virtue, ironies, patterns, and coincidences of American life. I love giving credit for thoughtful "What do you think" questions. I use primary sources, biographies, eyewitness accounts, video clips, art, music, infographics and the news media to showcase the layers of American history. I believe in cultural literacy but encourage students to make connections beyond the objective facts of history that every American should know. Analysis is at the cornerstone of my teaching because I want students to move away from ideological concepts and recognize the complexity in every area of American life. I want my students to be "thinkers" as well as "knowers," and I want them to value intelligent and non-dogmatic debate as well as life-long learning. I also want my students to write clearly, follow standard sentence structures, and know when to use a comma!

I've made it to the second qualifying level for Jeopardy! I am past chairman of our local adult literacy non-profit and on the local library board. I have written the trivia questions for our literacy non-profit's annual trivia bee fundraiser for the last 10 years.

I have a B.A. in English with minors in history and journalism from Presbyterian College in South Carolina. I received the journalism minor through the Washington Semester program at American University in Washington D.C. During that time, I also interned at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History in the Division of Military History. I have completed Masters level coursework in US History and in Institutional Advancement at the Peabody College of Education at Vanderbilt University. I have completed College Board training for AP English Literature, AP English Language, AP Macroeconomics and AP US Government.

My husband and I have a 16 year old son and a dog. I am an avid gardener, reader, and exerciser. I'm in two book clubs! I'm also related to Margaret Mitchell, the author of Gone With the Wind, though marriage!