by Jolene Anderson and Stevi Valenzuela
Freshman English teacher Kayla West came to Minarets in 2014. Currently West teaches English 9, along with beginning, intermediate, and advanced drama. West and her classes have been reading several short stories and news articles as part of their assignments. West says that she hopes for her students to gain English skills while also helping them learn self-care during the hard times of COVID. To help her students, West has had her students work through the lessons in smaller chunks, understanding there's a general lack of motivation because of online learning. West is very excited to start seeing students on campus so they can feel that she's a human and not just a person on a computer screen, as well as being able to tell more jokes, of course.
Mikendra McCoy, a new teacher to Minarets, has already fit in well with the staff and students. McCoy teaches English, runs the GSA (Gay-Straight Alliance) club as well as the Speech and Debate team. Similar to West, McCoy teaches in smaller chunks, utilizing articles and short stories. She says that she's not trying to turn her students into English majors but just to teach them the proper English they need for life. For the duration of the year, she wants to push her students to learn the most they can. She explained that the delivery of her content has changed a lot due to distance learning, and she just hopes her students make it through the year.
Upperclass English Teacher Michael Vaughan came to Minarets in 2013 and teaches English 11, AP Language and Composition, AP Literature Composition, and a Weights and Conditioning for Boys Soccer class. Vaughan explains what his different English classes are studying currently, saying, “All the Juniors are doing their Junior Thesis right now, they’re working on their rough drafts right now. At the same time, we’re reading Into the Wild, which is the true story of Chis McCandless. The AP classes [are in] the poetry prose unit and will probably start Heart of Darkness pretty soon.'' Vaughan says the biggest project for juniors is the Junior Thesis, a newly created hallmark writing project that is worth a large portion of juniors’ grade. The primary goals of the Junior Thesis are to teach students basic English skills like editing and revising their writing, researching a topic and being able to synthesize it, note-taking, and juggling their responsibilities and time, according to Vaughan. He looks forward to students returning to campus because they will be able to participate in more literature reading and active conversations.
Senior English teacher Michael Land says he came to Minarets in 2019 as a substitute Spanish teacher for former Spanish teacher Karen Urrutia-Polnitz and applied for the position of an English teacher last year. Teaching three English 12 classes, Land said a big challenge he has encountered in online learning is coordinating group projects. Because of this, he has shifted the learning material to focus more on grammar and vocabulary. When asked what he hopes students will take away from his class, Land answered, “I hope that they are prepared for the workplace or college, or both. That they feel ready to go into the world and be productive and feel capable.” He went on to explain that his plan for seniors returning to school is to have them read a novel of their choosing from a list of books approved by the school as their final English project.