1. How long have you been on Teachers Pay Teachers? What made you decide to be a part of it?I’ve been on TPT since 2007. I used to teach high school English, so I was part of a school district and had a lot of contacts within the district. When I left the public school system, my pool of contacts shrank, so I thought TPT would be a great marketplace for my products, and it has proven itself to be just that. Also, I had tried having my own website, but I couldn’t get any traffic to it. TPT has provided me with a customer base that I don’t think I could have reached on my own.
2. When did you know that you wanted to be in education?
I had an excellent English teacher in high school who showed me that literature can be more than just a story. This inspired me to want to be like him.
3. How are you currently involved in education?
I teach remedial writing at the community college level. Most of my students never planned on attending college, but with the current state of the economy and job market, they realize that it’s the best way to become employable.
4. What would be your advice to people who are considering joining Teachers Pay Teachers?
Offer a variety of products that can be developed quickly, keep the price down, and make them both fun and educational—something the students will enjoy doing and the teacher can be confident in the educational value of. Also, keep in mind that sometimes the simplest things work best.
5. What has been a highlight, thus far, about being on Teachers Pay Teachers?
A highlight has been that teachers actually implement my products in the classrooms, so students all over the country are being exposed to them. Also, I’ve received wonderful feedback on my products from teachers, which inspires me to keep creating them.
6. What is something fun about you that other teachers don’t know?I am a weaver. Yes, people still do that! Also, my husband and I are beekeepers.
7. Do you participate in education outside of the classroom? In what type of role?
No.
8. What profession other than yours would you like to attempt?
I would like to explore the field of library science, which is probably pretty typical for a teacher of literature.
9. What profession would you not like to do?
I would not like to work somewhere where I would have very little contact with other people and do not have the chance to meet a new group of people each semester.
10. Who is your favorite author? Favorite educational author? And why?
I’m into the classics—F. Scott Fitzgerald, Harper Lee, and Charles Dickens. The classics have more depth than a lot of the literature today.
My favorite author for classroom use is Harper Lee at the high school level, Lois Lowry at the middle school level, and Natalie Babbitt at the elementary level. Their books have such wonderful life-changing messages in them. I don’t anyone can ever be the same after reading them.
I have 23 editions of ThemeQuotes games, which I started developing when I taught high school. The games link famous quotations to the themes of popular books taught in the classroom and promote values, encourage teamwork, develop students’ understanding of theme, and challenge students’ reading-for-detail skills. They are a great way to wrap up a book unit. The games are based on most-taught books from fourth to twelfth grade.
I’m also proud of my unique types of crossword puzzles. I have puzzles that focus on figurative language, homophones, anagrams, trivia, authors’ lives, character quotations, synonyms and antonyms, and analogies, just to name a few. I have approached crosswords in a unique way to make them challenging and fun. I like to say that students learn from my puzzles without even knowing it!
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