This week in class I was completely frazzled and totally nervous about getting you all everything you need. I'm sure you could tell, so I'm just gonna say it now that I'm not ALWAYS going to be that annoying. ;)
I hope you're all feeling as enthusiastic about the changes to this class as I am. My goal is that by the end of this school year you will all have been sufficiently inspired to either pass the AP test, or to do an awesome job trying! If anything, I hope you will all feel this class was worthwhile and helped you to foreword your Language Arts education great leaps and bounds.
A little bit of information about me. I LOVE to read. I'm a little fanatical about it, actually. I grew up going to the library every Saturday without fail. My dad would round up me and my siblings on Saturday morning, we'd pile in our little ford mini-van and head off to the library. After choosing about 100 books, we piled back into the car and went to Thrifty's (now called Rite-Aid) for ice cream. These are precious memories for me.
My favorite place to go on a night out is the bookstore. I love the smell of books. I can spend hours in a bookstore or the library and still feel as if I've only just arrived. I'm always in the middle of at least two books. I sleep with one of the current ones under my pillow (that's the safest place for it as I fall asleep reading), and always carry a book in my purse.
My favorite books to read are Newberry Award winners. I know, they're not as complicated as Flannery O'Connor or Faulkner, but I just love the life lessons that are taught in them in such fun and amusing ways. Some of my favorite books are The Giver by Lois Lowry, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell (?I think?), The Enders Game series by Orson Scott Card, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, The Book Thief by Marcus Zuzak, The Great Gilly Hopkins by Katherine Patterson, and the list goes on and on and on... Authors I always recommend to my students are Lois Lowry, Shannon Hale, Mark Twain, Card, Tolkien, Louis L'Amour, and Jane Austen. There are more, but I'm guessing you're getting bored of this ... moving on ...
I think that learning to love reading is one of THE MOST IMPORTANT things for a person to do in his Pre-Teen and Teenage years, and I think the types of books that are nominated and given the Newberry Award help with that goal. Furthermore, they not only teach a young adult to love reading, they also teach unchanging values, morals, and social ideals to impressionable youth in ways that are understandable. I am very passionate about the ideal that the books that are read during youth not only affect, but help to create a persons view of the world. They are pivotal in creating proper (or improper...) morals, values and social understandings of life as we know it (read that book? I liked that one, too).
Someday - when my kids are grown and I have all the time in the world - I'm going to study children and young adult literature and it's connections to the moral and social development of a person. Look for my research... It's going to be amazing. :)
Just a few more tidbits... I'm married to the infamous Mr. Jason Jay of the History department at Harmony Ed. We were married in the Los Angeles Temple on October 13, 2001 when I was 19 years old and he was 23. We both grew up in Southern California, in the Mojave Desert. We were both public schooled and all four of our parents are teachers. Even though our houses were only about 30 miles from each other we didn't meet until September of 2000, probably because we are 4 years apart. He graduated from High School the same year I promoted from Junior High!. We've been married now for 11 years. We had our first child 1 year and 9 months after we were married, a boy. He was rapidly followed by three sisters, the youngest of whom is now 3 1/2. Although I love my job, my children are MY LIFE and the joy they bring me is completely incomprehensible. One of my favorite thing to hear them say is "I love to read, Mom!" (are you even surprised?)
I also love to talk, sing, dance(esp. tap-dance), perform musical theatre, scrapbook, and I am a devout member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
I know you are all completely glued to the page and dying for more information about my fantastically awesome life, but you'll just have to live with what I've written here. I would LOVE to know more about all of you, so feel free to comment and tell me your riveting life story.
I can't wait to delve into our studies this year... I am super excited! They say the best way to learn something is to teach it, so I can't wait to learn even more about writing, reading, and literature! See you in class!
