Dear Reader,

I call Clawson, Michigan my home as it is the location where I was born and raised and currently work. I am a
product of American mid-western sensibilities and I thoroughly enjoy residing in the state of the great lakes!
Being raised in a middle-class home within a blue-collar neighborhood has helped shape my identity and
worldview. My life experiences as well as my education and time at MSU have resulted in me viewing the
world through a critical lens. This critical perspective is evident in the type of teacher I am and in the class that I
conduct.
I earned my bachelors degree from Michigan State University in the spring of 2009. I majored in
Interdisciplinary Studies, my concentration was community relations with cognates in political science and I
minored in history. After my student teaching experience I was employed by Clawson Public Schools. I have
worked as a high school social studies teacher at Clawson High School for five years. During my time at
Clawson High School I have taught U.S. History & Geography, World History & Geography, Civics, and
Economics classes as well as an Early American Wars elective class.
Clawson Public Schools is made up of five different school buildings: one early childhood development center
that has pre-school and kindergarten programs, two elementary schools, one middle school and one high school.
Together, these buildings serve over 1,800 students. Clawson School District is one of the smallest school
districts in Oakland County. Clawson Public Schools is accredited by NCA (North Central Association on
Accreditation and School Improvement). Clawson is a community that consists of lower class and middle class
families and serves a significant amount of economically disadvantaged students. Clawson School District is
also a school-of-choice school that has open enrollment and we serve students who live all over the greater
metropolitan Detroit area (chiefly Pontiac, Oak Park, and Madison Heights). The student body of Clawson
schools is predominantly white but it also consists of 30% African American students, 5% Chaldean and
Albanian, and 2% Asian. The high school has a similar demographic breakdown and serves 600 students
(grades 9-12, freshmen - senior).
This year I am teaching four sections of U.S. History & Geography, to mostly freshmen, and one section of an
Early American Wars class to upper classmen. The curriculum that I teach is aligned with the State of
Michigans High School Social Studies Content Expectations. Teaching a fairly diverse group of students, some
economically disadvantaged, at various levels of academic ability is challenging. I have devise various
instructional strategies to address these challenges that I have been confronted with while working at Clawson.
These strategies will be explained in my synthesis paper.
All general education classroom teachers will have stories of students who struggle with reading and writing. I
have helped some of my struggling students the following ways: employing a think-aloud strategy where I read
to the class a selection of text and literally tell them what I am thinking while I am reading it. The
aforementioned strategy assists the students in making sense of the text in front of them and is basically a
modeling strategy that gives the students one way to read texts. I have also picked up many different strategies
from my colleagues, particularly other teachers in the English department who have expansive intervention
strategies in regards to reading deficiencies. My colleagues have taught me how to implement before, during
and after reading strategies that ask students to engage their prior knowledge as well as ensure students
constantly monitor what they are reading and their understanding of the material. Fortunately, I have colleagues
who are knowledgeable and I work in an environment that is conducive to sharing effective teaching strategies
as my colleagues have also taught me about using anticipation guides, the listen-read-discuss strategy and
various comprehension note-taking strategies.