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Secondary English Language Arts and Reading Newsletter
Department of English and
Foreign Languages
Spring/Summer 2005
To all secondary English certification
majors and other interested parties:
This is your last on-line newsletter for 2004-05. I hope you agree that it has been a good way
to keep contact and share information with secondary English (ELAR)
certification students, as well as those who might not be officially in the
certification program but who are interested enough in certification to want to
receive information about it. For more
information and for back newsletters, visit the NEW English
Certification website: http://www.shsu.edu/~mah011/
Now, on to the news.
Dr. Young Out to Pasture. As many of
you know, I have been hoping for the past few years that the department would
be able to hire a new faculty member to direct the English certification program. This year, we successfully recruited and
hired Dr. Melanie Hanson (see below) to take over the program. We have long needed a program director who
has significant high school teaching experience, and Dr Hanson provides us this
and much, much more. I actually won’t
be put out to pasture. I will be
returning to full-time teaching, as well as getting back to reading and writing
about American and Texas literature. I
won’t be disappearing from the certification program. I’ll be helping Dr. Hanson with the transition, and I imagine
I’ll be teaching some of the new courses in the expanded program. Directing this program has been one of the
best things I’ve done in my career. The
most important and memorable aspect of it has been getting to know the many
fine students who have gone through the program and who now do us proud out
there in the public-school teaching ranks.
I hope to continue to hear from you.
Welcome to Dr. Melanie Hanson. Dr.
Melanie Hanson will join us this August to direct the certification program and
to teach the principal courses in the program (English 464 and the new Teaching
Writing and Teaching Literature courses).
She comes to us with 17 years of highly successful high school teaching
in California and Nevada. She left that
love to pursue another—graduate study in English—and subsequently received the
Ph.D. from The University of Nevada at Las Vegas. Dr. Hanson comes highly recommended. She has rich and exciting ideas about what can be done to improve
and enhance our certification program, and I am delighted to have her as a
colleague. I hope lots of you will stop
by her office during the fall to meet Dr. Hanson and welcome her to Sam. Dr. Hanson has already put up a website with
information about herself and about the certification program. In fact, this is now the official
certification website. Visit it
at: http://www.shsu.edu/~mah011/
TExES Honor Roll. In 2003-04,
our students achieved a 100 percent passing rate on the 8-12 ELAR TExES (the
certification examination in English).
This year we didn’t equal that, though we had only two failures in the
40 that took the exam. (Actually, one
of those was not part of our program but was wrongly authorized to take the
exam.) Here’s the honor roll of those
who passed the TExES exam in 2004-05:
Dayna Birdwell, Shannon Black, Kathleen Blocker,
Rebekah Bowen, Taylor Bruns, Traci Burns, Lori Cannon, Heather Cleavelin, Josh
Cooper, Erica Cox, Amanda Cunningham, Jessica Dans, Gloria Dusold, Andrea
Evans, Ericca Fader, Lorie Gonzalez, Katy Humberson, Patti Kassner, Brian
Knobloch, Wendy Lucas, Amy Miller, Christina Moore, Kolby Morgan, Amy Morneau,
Amber Moseley, Kristina Odom, Tiffany Oliphant, Melanie Peiskee, Regina Ricks,
Angela Ross, Jessica Sims, Jessica Ballard, Theresa Spagna, Susan Spangler, and
Summer Watson.
The
highest TExES score for the year was 288, by Amy Miller. This threatened the all-time high of 289,
scored by Jennifer Ashley. Congratulations
to all of you!!!
Registration for Fall 2005. Most of the
fall upper-division English classes are full or nearly so. If you have been unable to get into needed
classes, I might (and might not) be able to help you. I’ve already seen several of you, but I am still available for
advising. Dr. Hanson will be taking
over the certification advising at some point, but I will stay involved in it
for a while.
New English Courses Coming On; English
375 Offered Fall 2005. The revised English certification curriculum, which
was mentioned in the last couple of newsletters, goes into effect in the fall
of 2005 (though it won’t officially appear in the catalogue until 2006-08
edition). The main news for now is that
English 375 (Teaching Writing) is being offered for the first time this fall
(Tuesday-Thursday at 11:00, taught by Dr. Hanson). However, it currently has only one vacancy. English 375 is replacing English 380
(Advanced Composition) in the English certification curriculum. If you have not taken English 380 yet, you
should try to take English 375 instead.
We will do a course substitution for you. English 376 (Teaching Literature) will be offered for the first
time in spring 2006. By the way, English 464 will expand its coverage of more
general approaches to teaching English language arts (with more emphasis on
integration of the language arts, literacy, assessment, and reading
theory). Your current degree plan
will not be affected by these revisions.
Beginning with F05, new certification majors in secondary English will
be required to take all three of these courses.
The Secondary ELAR TExES for
2005-06. SBEC (The State Board for Educator Certification) has
posted the TExES schedule for 2005-06.
(Visit the SBEC website for the entire schedule. It is also on the certification
website. For those of you who don’t
know, the TExES is the state content-area exam you will have to pass to be
certified to teach high school English in Texas. You’ll take it during your senior year. You also have to pass a pedagogy—teaching—exam, for which your
education courses will prepare you.)
The first state exam date is October 2.
The first review was August 9th. The first pre-test is Saturday, August 20th (9 am, Evans
417). Anyone may attend the reviews
free of charge, but the pre-tests cost $5.00.
You are required to attend at least one review and to take the pre-test
before you will be allowed to take the certification examination. For most of you, the best time to do the
review and take the TExES examination is somewhere near the end of your English
464 semester. You do not have to be
taking one of the above exams to attend the review. For further information on the workshops and how to prepare for
the TExES, visit the English Department secondary English certification website:
http://www.shsu.edu/~mah011/
Graduates and New Teachers.
Spring and Summer 2005 Certification Graduates: Rikki
Ames, Jennifer Ashley, Shannon Black, Rebekah Bowen, Josh Cooper, Gloria
Dusold, Shaundricka Easley, Errica Fader, Katy (Martin) Humberson, Xia Liu,
Jamie Massengale, Amber Moseley, Melanie Peiskee, Regina Ricks, Angela Ross,
Theresa Spagna, and Summer Watson.
Profuse congratulations to these grads (and apologies to anyone left off
the list).
Who’s Teaching Where?: Here’s a list
of recent graduates just beginning their teaching careers, as well as recent
news about a couple of past grads. Angela Ross (Mexia); Josh Cooper (Conroe High School); Melanie Peiskee (Coldsprings); Rebekah Bowen (Coldsprings); Theresa
Spagna (Willis); Summer Watson
(New Caney). I also recently heard from
a couple of earlier graduates with teaching news. Dodie Niemeyer (who
began her teaching career as the entire high school English Department at
Goodrich and then taught at New Caney) has just begun teaching English at The
Woodlands High School). Sharon Danley is in her first year at
Westfield High School.