Thursday, January 19, 2012

Kristen Bowers

Kristen Bowers

Kristen Bowers, USA, Secondary, English Language Arts

Before I got into teaching, I naively assumed that teachers would be given all the materials they needed in order to teach the required core curriculum, and that what teachers created themselves was just gravy. Oh, how wrong I was! I was lost my first year, begging and borrowing anything and everything I could get my hands on to help students learn the skills on which they were being tested. I was hired at a school with an established reputation and high scores–I certainly did not want to mess that up as a first year teacher! After struggling with my first year of teaching, never able to find good materials I needed to help my students meet the demands of district and state testing requirements, I decided that I needed to design my own. I spent an entire summer, day after day, creating and writing materials that helped my students learn and appreciate the required core literature, the skills and concepts of the California Content Standards, the grammar, the writing, the vocabulary, quizzes, tests, essay prompts!! Finally, I had created my first Literature Guide.

After using my materials with HUGE success and sharing my success and enthusiasm with my colleagues who wanted to know my secret, I shared and created more for more of literature I had to teach. From there, after recommendations and nudges from my colleagues and family who felt I was on to something, I joined up with my mom (a former teacher herself) and opened an online store with four titles.

Now, with over 35 titles, six years later, blood, sweat, tears, and hours of lost sleep, here we are–Secondary Solutions–The First Solution for the Secondary Teacher!

Secondary Solutions
Ideas, tips, and tools for the middle and high school English Language Arts teacher.

Theme: teaching, english language arts, literature, writing, middle school, high school, lesson plans, language arts, teacher resources

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