Please proofread

I am applying for a grad program in teaching writing and I need to include a personal statement with the application. Please read my statement below and tell he how it sounds. Thanks!


As a high school teacher in the state of Michigan, the most obvious reason for returning to school is to accumulate enough credits to maintain my professional license. Keeping my license up-to-date is not my sole motivation, however. I am fifteen years into my teaching career and I feel that I need some fresh, research-based strategies to improve my teaching style and help my students achieve better academic outcomes. I believe that Eastern Michigan's Teaching of Writing Certificate program will help me help my students become better writers.


From the moment I entered high school, I knew that one day I would be either a French major or an English major. Ultimately, French won my heart, but the most influential teacher I have ever had was my senior year Approaching the Arts teacher, Barb Masters. She taught her students to think critically by asking us to read difficult modern writers such as Joyce, Ginsburg, and Waldman. She stretched our vision by introducing us to visual artists like Hans Haacke and directors like Bergman. I have tried to imbue my classroom with some of the lessons I learned from Mrs. Masters. Fortunately for her, she never had to deal with the dictates of No Child Left Behind.

Teaching in Hamtramck means the large majority of my students are non-English speakers, representing about 20 different languages. From one or two Russian speakers to many Bengla speakers, Hamtramck offers challenges to educators of any background. Those students who are native speakers offer their own obstacles. Many come from homes mired in generations of poverty and low levels of literacy. Many are students who have shuttled from school to school looking for the promises that charter schools and school of choice programs make. Instead, they lose valuable time and often lose any sense of community that a neighborhood school can offer. These are my students. Most are both poor readers and writers. If that is the case, why should I focus on writing? From my experience, students will offer move active resistance to a writing task than a reading task. Reading tasks can be eased with MP3 files of the reading material or the teacher reading aloud. A writing task is the exclusive responsibility of the writer. If the writer is a student, he/she often feels overwhelmed trying to achieve perfect spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and details. If spelling is a problem or a student has no idea where to place a paragraph break, why bother trying?

Looking for help, I applied to participate in Eastern Michigan's National Writing Project. I had heard wonderful things about the National Writing Project from colleagues who have participated at other institutions. Having been accepted, I am most looking forward to sharing research writing lessons with colleagues from the all over the region. More importantly, I am looking ahead to taking further classes to assist in the teaching of writing and completing the Teaching of Writing certificate. Any information I can use to assist my students is information that I both want and need.

Inspired silliness

I have just started reading J.D Salinger's Catcher in the Rye to my mainstream/special education class. So far so good, they seem to like it. I, on the other hand, am LOVING it. I had forgotten how good it is. One thing I ask the students to do is to write down an interesting or confusing quote every few pages. Thus far, they have picked some terrific quotes.

Thinking about this has, of course, distracted me. I love picking out phrases and lines from songs and movies and keeping them around. I probably have reserved precious brain space for dozens of these snippets. Some are serious while most are goofy. Here are just a few that I am certain that I know by heart:

"I'd beg for some forgiveness, but beggin's not my business."
"If you have five seconds to spare, then I'll tell you the story of my life. Sixteen, clumsy, and shy...."
"This one goes to 11."
"You're a monster."
"I'm quite illiterate, I read a lot."

What are those one line phrases that bring an immediate smile to your face whenever you encounter them?