About me...

My name is Antoinette and I am currently living in Chelsea, Michigan.  I received my bachelor’s degree from Michigan State with a concentration in Social Studies in 2008.  I became interested in literacy my second year of college when I took TE 248.  The following year, I took TE348 Reading and Learning with Children’s Literature.  By then, I had already taken too many courses in Social Studies, it did not make sense to change the route I was on to graduate. 

After my year-long internship in fourth grade, I was not able to obtain a teaching position.  I was a substitute teacher.  During that year I was able to attain a long-term substitute position as a media specialist in a 5/6 building.  I absolutely loved spending my day in the library, talking to students about books and teaching technology.  The following year I took a 4^th grade position teaching science and social studies.  During my time there, the district was undergoing curriculum changes and adopted Lucy Calkin’s Reading Workshop.  They paid for instructors from the Teacher’s College Reading Institute to come to the district for training.  I was then laid-off and spent another year subbing.  I held a long-term position in 5^th grade in the district I had worked in the following year, where I was able to continue teaching through Reading Workshop.  Last year I also held a long-term substitute position in a kindergarten classroom. 

This year I have been Co-Teaching in a 5/6 split classroom at a charter school in Ypsilanti for the first half of the school year and I will finish out the school year in the building as an instructional teacher assistant working one-on-one with students who are at-risk and did not pass the MEAP in Reading.

After being trained in Lucy Calkin’s Reading Workshop, I love the idea of using anchor charts to go along with mini-lessons.  The key with the mini-lessons is to keep them short, to the point, but give a personal connection for the students.  Also, although it may seem like a lot of writing, I really see a benefit in having students respond to the text.  You can gain a lot of knowledge about a student, how they think and how they learn based on their responses.

In addition to working full time and taking 4 graduate classes, I am currently engaged and am planning my July wedding.  In my "free time" I enjoy reading, biking, running, baking, gardening and geocaching.  If I am able to work in enough time for training, I am planning on completing my first triathlon by the end of this summer.

I am very interested in beginning to understand parts of the social perspective on curriculum in schools!