The Important Things About MeA Resume of Lauren Cobb

Licensed to teach 4-9 Language arts and social studies

Endorsed for 4-9 readingMaster’s in Curriculum and Instruction

A Copy-change ExperiencePatterned after The Important Book

Written by Margaret Wise Brown & illustrated by Leonard Weisgard

An important thing about me is that I am a teacher, both inside and outside of the classroom.I’ve substitute taught subjects as varied as 5th grade band and 12th grade history.I’ve student taught 4th grade language arts and social studies at Akron’s Ritzman Community Learning Center, where I learned the value of professional learning communities.I’ve taught 4th grade language arts and social studies at Streetsboro’s Henry Defer Intermediate School, where I partnered with the art and music teachers to help students better understand the Underground Railroad.I’ve taught 4th and 5th grade small groups at Twinsburg’s George G. Dodge Intermediate School, where we explored trade books, poetry, and Native American history together. I’ve used story cubes, interactive journals, reader’s theaters, and graphic organizers to inform my students of story structure, key events and people leading up to the Civil War, the impact Tecumseh had on the War of 1812, and the similarities and differences between nouns and pronouns.I’ve taught mini lessons on the rock cycle during a scavenger hunt in Senegal and basic hygiene techniques in the jungles of Ecuador.I’ve persuaded fellow classmates of the importance of the national park system and informed them of how Alzheimer’s and dementia are addressed in today’s health care system.

But an important thing about me is that I am a teacher, both inside and outside of the classroom.An important thing about me is I am a student.

I believe the more I know, the better I teach.I use my free time to learn more about my subjects and how to best teach them, whether it is reading Stephanie Harvey’s Nonfiction Matters: Reading, Writing, and Research in grades 3-8 over winter break or watching edTed talks instead of TV.I have independently observed elementary, middle, and high school teachers in order to better know where my future students have been, will be, and are going.I compare teaching strategies with current and former classmates to better develop my craft.I read professional journals across the content areas in order to refine both how I teach my subjects and how I can support my fellow teachers in their specialties.I participate in two outside studies and several MOOCs concerning the humanities and social sciences – the cross cultural lessons are particularly interesting. I am pursuing my K-12 reading endorsement from Kent State University.I plan to pursue my generalist in science and mathematics through the OAE tests as well as the Master’s degree Advance Inquiry Program at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo.But an important thing about me is I am a student.

An important thing about me is that I am a reader.

I believe the more I read as both a teacher and student, the more I can model reading to my students.I read picture books such as Sara Pennylacer’s award-winning Sparrow Girl with an eye for teaching. In this case, this book could be used to teach topics such as the growth of Mao Tse-Tung’s China, the consequences of absolute power, or the fragility of local eco-systems. I read novels from diverse perspectives, such as Jacqueline Woodson, Sharon Draper, Sherman Alexie, and Thanhha Lai to both understand the various culture that may be represented in my classroom and to better help my students better understand multicultural issues.I stock up on young adult popular fiction from authors such as Ellen Hopkins, James Dashner, and Suzanne Collins for both my students to read and me to read to better see the world through young eyes. I read and share my reading of adult nonfiction books such as David Laskin’s The Family to model metacognition and continuous learning strategies to my students as well as to keep up to date on content areas. I read professional journals such as The Reading Teacher and the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literature to sate professional curiosity and inspire educational strategies. But am important thing about me is that I am a reader.

An important thing about me is that I am a writer.

I believe that the more I write, the better I can scaffold the writing process, various forms of writing, and various reasons for writing to my students.For more than five years, I wrote and edited newspaper articles that included sports, features, editorials, columns, and news for a chain of local papers. I also assigned and edited newspaper articles as varied as listed above produced by others for that same chain. Journalistic writing and reporting are processes I have taught both to language arts and social studies students and to beginning teachers. Throughout my classes, I have written and published biographical essays, short stories, flash fiction pieces, various forms of poetry, and several reader’s theaters. All of which are examples of work I plan on sharing with my students as inspiration.I also write reflective journal entries after teaching in order to explain how the day went, what happened, what I hoped to happen, and what I could have done better.I hope to one day turn these reflective pieces into published journal entries to garner ideas and support from educational professionals nation-wide.I write creative stories at home and have sought publication both for a novel and for a series of short stories. This process of writing, revising, rewriting, editing, and publishing is a process I wish to mirror to my students in the form of writing circles. But an important thing about me is that I am a writer.

An important thing about me is that I am multi-faceted, and I want my students to be so as well.

I believe the more a person learns and does, the better that person is.I have been a stay-at-home nurse and learned the value of compassion.I have been a volunteer story-teller and learned the importance of an attention-grabber.I have been an office worker in a customer service center and learned the immense worth of patience.I have been a paint store employee and have grown in appreciation of the wonder of color and design.I have been an historical interpreter and have found myself debating old topics in new ways.I have been a dog trainer and have considered the pluses and minuses of basic psychological theories such as classic conditioning.I have run a half-marathon and have learned the hard way the enduring philosophy of taking a task step-by-step to success. I have traveled to four continents and have observed and experienced how other cultures view the world, themselves, and the US differently than us – a trait needed for students to succeed in an increasingly interdependent world. I am a teacher, a student, a reader, and a writer, but the important thing about me is that I am multi-faceted, and I want my students to be so as well.