Hey, I'm Rachel! I'm glad you decided to stop by and check out my new and exciting blog, at least I hope it's exciting. I am currently starting my second year at Shippensburg University where I am majoring in English with a Secondary Education focus. In my free time, I like to read, bake, hang out with my 3 cats, and binge watch some amazing shows on Netflix. I hope to be a great teacher one day, and while I love the little kiddos I teach during Sunday School at church, my dream is to be a high school educator. I have a passion for English and literature, and I hope to instill that same love for reading and writing in the kids that walk into my classroom in the future.

While I hope to be a great teacher in the future, I have fears and worries of my own. I love the subject and most, if not all, that comes with it, but grammar and all of its rules can be daunting, intimidating, and scary to think about having to teach others. I struggle with not wanting to make a fool of myself in the classroom, either in front of my peers now or my students later on down the road. However, while I have my own fears and weaknesses, I do have a love for English and grammar that may be odd to others. I actually really enjoy spending times editing and revising essays. For some reason, I find it oddly satisfying to insert commas where they are needed or change a word to a more suitable one for the context. I enjoy writing essays, if they are under 7-8 pages long, and I feel I can better communicate my knowledge and skills through writing than through exams.

Because I will be forced to teach grammar in my career, I hope to do it in an effective way. I can't remember the last time I had a grammar lesson in school. In ninth grade, I remember talking about essay structure and varying sentences, but an actual grammar lesson would have probably been all the way back in middle school. I'm glad to be in this class, because not only will refresh what I know, but it will give me tools to teach it effectively in either middle or high school. Because I haven't had any grammar lessons, at least that I can remember, in such a long time, I have had to rely on teacher feedback on essays and from examples of my peers.

Needless to say, I have some major pet peeves when it comes to grammar! I love staying connected to friends and family that I don't see much, but I also HATE getting on Facebook or Instagram and having to deal with people who write as if they've never seen the inside of book, let alone a school! The "confusion" over using the words "your" or "you're" makes absolutely no sense to me, but it's something we are all forced to deal with on a daily basis. Also, I know some people are not the best spellers, and I can be one of them, but it gets to a point that is a little ridiculous. When people use "defiantly" instead of "definitely" or "loose" instead of "lose", it gets on my nerves. While I love grammar and the art of it, I understand that not everyone gets it or likes it in the same way, but they should at least try.

"One repays a teacher badly if one always remains nothing but a pupil." ~Friedrich Nietzsche