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I never wanted to teach middle school. After my break from teaching, I applied for an elementary teaching job, but I was interviewed for a 6th grade ELA position. After teaching 6th grade for about a month, I remembered a dream that I had about teaching Language Arts and setting up my classroom like a cafe where students would love to read and write. It took about a month for me to realize I love teaching middle school ELA. I love being a middle school teacher, it is my passion!!

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I teach because I want to show students that they are capable of so much more than they realize. I teach ELA because it is the foundation of understanding the world around you. My grandparents would always tell me stories of the past, and I was so fascinated on how a story can change people's points of views.

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I teach because I have always loved learning and wanted to try to provide a classroom where  kids develop that same love. ELA was always my favorite subject, but my lowest grade and that discouraged me. So I wanted to teach it to help make students successful.

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I have always loved English. However, It’s a challenging subject to teach, and many people find it boring. I have found fun and innovative ways to make it interesting for students. I love when students come in and say they hate English and then before long they tell me it is their favorite class. It makes me feel like I did something right. 

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I have always loved English. However, It’s a challenging subject to teach, and many people find it boring. I have found fun and innovative ways to make it interesting for students. I love when students come in and say they hate English and then before long they tell me it is their favorite class. It makes me feel like I did something right. 

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Since I was in high school I knew I wanted to be a teacher..maybe even before then! It runs in my family and I knew I wanted to make a difference in some way! It makes me happy to see students grow and knowing you are the one that got them there is the most rewarding feeling!

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I teach because I struggled in school and want to help students be successful.  I did not have any positive teachers in school, so I wanted to be that positive influence.  I fell in love with ELAR 15 years ago when I started working as a dyslexia aide.  I wanted to help students be successful in their reading and writing.  Reading and writing were my strongest subjects in school and I want to share my passion with students. 

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I teach because I struggled in school and want to help students be successful.  I did not have any positive teachers in school, so I wanted to be that positive influence.  I fell in love with ELAR 15 years ago when I started working as a dyslexia aide.  I wanted to help students be successful in their reading and writing.  Reading and writing were my strongest subjects in school and I want to share my passion with students. 

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I love the journey of reading and writing. Reading connects you to the world and writing gives you a voice for the world to hear. I believe in the power of reading and writing and I want my students to become powerful. Teaching them to read and write does that.

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I became a teacher because I love the process of learning, especially topics that I am passionate about. Kids have so many voices being thrown at them via social media, and I want students to have access to at least one that will encourage them to keep trying. As for ELA, I stopped reading in middle school because I couldn't find anything that I found interesting. Today, I am a lover of words and believe they are most powerful gift (and sometimes weapon). They can transform lives, communities, and governments.

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As a kid who didn’t really care for writing in high school, I was a bit surprised to find myself in ELA. It was a project in college that allowed me to see the weight of the language arts, the impact of the truth that we get to discuss, that dropped me where I am today.

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I got into ELA after teaching 17 years of science because I wanted to work with students and their writing/reading strategies in a smaller classroom size setting… Science classrooms in middle school Las Vegas were averaging between 35-50 students.  I love helping students love reading and writing and inspiring them to do so!!!

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I teach because it is humbling to watch students grow and transform as the year goes on.  I fell in love with this content area when I was in high school.  I had a great English teacher and I realized that every one has a unique perspective when reading a story. The sharing of the  different perspectives helped me understand the story better and see it in a different point of view.

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I teach because it is humbling to watch students grow and transform as the year goes on.  I fell in love with this content area when I was in high school.  I had a great English teacher and I realized that every one has a unique perspective when reading a story. The sharing of the  different perspectives helped me understand the story better and see it in a different point of view.

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| I teach because I have a yearning desire to share my love of literature and writing with another generation, and to help each of my students figure out that they don’t “hate reading.” They simply need some help finding the right texts for them.

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I chose teaching because of the experiences I had while on summer camp staff for nine summers; I loved working with kids and have found so many positives of working with kids. I love ELA because of the ideas that come out of our students!

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I love this subject area because I think it allows students to learn about themselves the way no other core subject does.Through telling and analyzing stories, they grow.

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I’ve always loved reading/ELA, but my 10th grade English teacher, Mrs. Gaston, made me realize I could love teaching as a career.  She always taught with passion and empathy.  I loved her class, but more importantly I loved her as a person. She's my inspiration as a teacher.

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I actually hated ELA till about my junior year in high school . I had this amazing teacher that would  not accept mediocrity from me. She challenged me with books, spelling, and just overall making he learning process fun. As time went on, I started to realize the connection between communication and ELA. It helped me not only understand myself more but to communicate things more effectively depending on its purpose.

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I actually hated ELA till about my junior year in high school . I had this amazing teacher that would  not accept mediocrity from me. She challenged me with books, spelling, and just overall making he learning process fun. As time went on, I started to realize the connection between communication and ELA. It helped me not only understand myself more but to communicate things more effectively depending on its purpose.

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I teach ELAR because I fell in love with the endless possibilities that come with reading and writing.

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I teach because I love helping young adults become the best versions of themselves. ELA is so important! Learning to read and write sets you up for success. 

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I teach because I love helping young adults become the best versions of themselves. ELA is so important! Learning to read and write sets you up for success. 

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I teach to make a difference for my students. I went into teaching because it made sense for me. I loved English and I wanted future adults to be more educated than some that I was coming into contact with; sorry but that’s the truth. I fell in love with teaching when I had my first job six years ago. I was teaching in inner city Saint Paul to sixth graders who could barely read and who had a lot more to worry about than what they were reading in English class. I changed my teaching style completely and saw these students make great strides, even on the dreaded standardized tests. I had a student contact me who have not seen in four years to tell me he was going into his senior year and he still thinks about a lesson I taught him in sixth grade about Nature vs. Nurture. He told me he wanted to change his answer… he now thinks it’s both and went into a full explanation of why. He also thanked me for making it real and not just about a book or a research topic. That’s why I do what I do.

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I became a teacher because I loved helping students become successful in what they were learning. I wanted students to know that they had someone who wasn’t perfect and understood their struggles and help them overcome them. I really fell in love with ELA when teaching 3rd grade students. The engagement and discussions we had when reading our novels was amazing but I wanted to share more and go more in depth with our discussions so I thought middle school students would be the best fit for me.

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I love reading, I love being taken to new places and experiencing the lives of others.  It makes me sad when kids say they hate to read or they haven’t read since they were little.  It is my goal and and desire to have the students to make connections to something we read during the course of the year.

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I chose ELAR because the written word has always been fun to me. I had English teachers that encouraged me to read and write and experience the world through literature. I hope to do the same to my diverse group of students. I want them to love literature and learning like I do!

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I teach because it is very self rewarding knowing that I have one of the most important jobs in the world!

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Simply put, words make me really happy. I have art on my walls at home, and it’s mostly word art. Words make sense to me. Grammar makes sense to me. I am a writer as well. Basically, ELA incorporates all the things I love(d) about school, and I love that I have to do it every day with my kiddos!

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My love of ELA stems from my love of Theatre. I loved getting to explore new plays and musicals and diving into different worlds through books. This is why I love teaching now because i help students understand that they can take what we learn and incorporate it into so many different parts of their lives.

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I don't have a tangible story or moment, but I came into ELA with experience only as a writing teacher. I've always loved writing and believed i its liberating power, but once I became a double blocked ELA teacher, I fell in love with the realization of the concept of teaching students how to tap into and harness their metacognitive skills.

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I became a teacher because my middle school English teacher saved my life in more ways than one. She quite literally saved my life (long story), but she also taught me how to use writing as a means of expressing myself and letting out my built-up emotions. I wanted to do for other students what she did to me. Twenty-nine years later, I still speak with her. Her picture is in my classroom as a reminder of why I do what I do.

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Inspired by an amazing 3rd Grade Teacher because my experiences were so memorable and worthwhile. I hoped to do the same for other students?
Why I teach ELA?
Inspired by secondary ELA teachers because the learning experiences they created were so insightful and engaging.

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I teach because it is the best job in the world. I love reading, I love writing, I love words. I always strive to support students to learn and absorb how much reading and writing can positively affect and change their lives.

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Why do I teach ELA? I am an ELA teacher because I had wonderful ELA teachers in high school and junior high school. I love to read. I love to write. Naively, I thought that moving from teaching math (just one year!) to English would be easy because I thought everybody loved to read and write. Not so much. I took a break and taught tech apps for five years. The day I gave the STAAR test in an English classroom and looked at all the ELA stuff, I knew I wanted to get back into ELA. Tricked again! I have taught ELA for almost 20 years now. Crazy. :) And I love it.

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The reason I got into teaching was to create the space(s) I needed when I was little. Between my two elementary schools (one predominantly Black and underfunded, one predominantly white and heavily resourced), I didn't get a space where I had both the cultural nurturing I needed *and* the resources to succeed until college. I want to make sure my students don't have to have that same struggle.

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I chose to teach to help all students learn and meet their unique, individual needs.

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Growing up poor, it was instilled in me that education was the key to change my situation as well as the situation of those around me.  Also, being an Black American, I was intrigued by the fact that it used to be ILLEGAL for my people to read and write, and now I have the privilege to TEACH reading to others.