Urban Educator

I have been teaching in inner-city, urban areas in Los Angeles for the past six years. Urban classrooms are unique and urban educators face unique challenges and struggles such as vastly differing reading levels, lack of social and emotional development, trauma-informed teaching, and creating culturally relevant pedagogy that will engage reluctant learners. In my past six years of teaching in an urban classroom, I have created curriculum that takes into account these challenges, and the Common Core standards. I hope that the resources I share can help solve some of these obstacles you might be facing in your urban classroom!

A hybrid of the direct, discuss, delegate styles. I like to incorporate pop culture, movies, and music to engage students, then apply those same principles to literature. For example, using rap music to teach Shakespeare. I adapt my teaching styles to the needs of my students, as well as based on the content I am teaching.

Teacher of the Year nominee in 2015 Teacher of the Year in 2017 Professional Development Leader

I earned a B.A. in English and a B.S. in Criminology from the University of La Verne (2010). I studied at Oxford University with a focus on Shakespeare (2010). I earned my Single Subject Teaching Credential in English from Cal State University Fullerton (2013).

My urban classroom consists of 20-25 students with reading skills ranging from phonetic awareness to grade level reading ability. This diverse level of skills has required me to adapt curriculum to try to solve for the large gaps in skills, as well as develop ways to differentiate a classroom and curriculum to meet my students at their current skill level and to help them reach grade level standards.