"Hello, my name is Josh! I graduated from UC Irvine with a B.A. in English, and I got my teaching credential from CSULB where I earned a 4.0 GPA. I have 9.5 years of experience teaching in the classroom where I primarily taught Film, but I also taught Creative Writing for 6 years, and ELA for 3 years. I started out as a middle school English teacher, but my Principal at the time wanted to try to create a class that could be taught parallel to an English class but capitalize on students' visual intelligence in order to provide instruction about challenging ELA concepts like theme and symbolism. So, I created a Film class, building it from scratch, and I taught that class for more than 8 years. The class was designed to help students identify and analyze how theme, symbolism, and a variety of art and film techniques are used to imbue films with deeper meaning and was designed to to set students up for success in a college setting.

My experience has reinforced three key beliefs that I have about teaching. One, students will grow most rapidly when you can empower them to successfully engage with texts that are above grade level. Two, students learn best when they teach each other -- or, even better, when they have been empowered to teach themselves. Three, high-quality writing instruction strongly reinforces a student's growth and learning.

I cannot emphasize enough how much experience I have teaching writing. In Film, students would write five or more essays per year as well as reflective pieces that explored their lives and identity. We also spent the entire year practicing expository writing in that class. In Creative Writing, students wrote poetry and would eventually complete a near-professional quality short story. At the end of each year, I would have students' poetry and short stories published in a class compendium that I would give to them as a reward for their hard work. Honestly, if you need help improving ANY form of writing, I assure you that you have come to the right place." less...