I teach 8th grade language arts, and am drawn to gamification, blended learning, graphic design, and standards-based grading. My goal is to do all my own homework and to design lessons around novelty, humor, suspense, movement, cooperation, and celebration. This is not easy, because I truly hate wasted class time. I care about rigor, and believe that language arts can save students and save the world. In 2015, I was the CLMS Teacher of the Year for Region 5.