Welcome to English Enclave

 Hi! Welcome to my new blog. I'm Melissa from English Enclave and I wanted to take a few minutes to introduce myself. 

I have a masters degree in English education and have taught middle school and high school English in 4 different states. I have two beautiful t(w)eenage girls, 12 and 14 years old, who drive me crazy and keep me pretty busy, and who also give me more insight into the kinds of things that the youths like to read than I ever thought I needed to know. 

Before my kids were born, I taught English in New Jersey where I went to college, then in Indiana and Texas, before setting in Pennsylvania when my husband finally finished grad school. During that time, I taught 9th-11th grade English, 8th grade communications, 8th grade creative writing, journalism - even one section of 6th grade religion during one of the stranger years of my life. 

Then I had babies and spent the next six years of my life as a stay at home mom. I joke now with my 14 year old that people would ask me what I did to make her so smart and I insisted that she just came out that way - and she did! They both did! BUT. But. The teacher in my would pick up on their natural hunger for learning and fill it with every little bit of home learning I could come up with. We learned sign language, learned about the American revolution, traveled to different parks and libraries. 

And then when my little one started kindergarten I started my long journey back home to the classroom. I day to day subbed for 5 years, doing everything from checking kindergarten folders for notes to teaching Don Quixote to fifth graders to watching National Treasure with high school history summer school kids. I got a crash course in fundamentals of reading instruction far superior to what I learned in my masters degree when I actually made sound charts and word walls with second graders. 

But finally, I got a full time permanent sub position teaching 10th and 11th grade English, where I've been for the past 2 years. My coworkers at that job told me that they were in awe of me because I could just show up to someone else's classroom and pick up and teach. They said the only way they can do what they do is doing the same thing for 10 years. 

In a PDE workshop I wrote the simile "I am like a post-it because I can be moved to a new place and still stick."

I hung that post it on my bedroom wall.

I'm proud of my flexibility, of my ability to adapt and change to new classrooms and new curricula. I don't know where I'll be next year yet, and I hope you'll stick around for the ride.