English Teacher
TED-Ed Club and TEDxYouth@AASSofia Founder
American International School of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Josefino Rivera, Jr.
In the world, my students...
Massimiliano Valli
BA Political Science, New York University, Abu Dhabi 2016
Ex-student in my AP Language and Composition, American Overseas School of Rome, 2010-2011
Valli's Column in NYU Abu Dhabi's Student Paper The Gazelle
Nick van Osdol
BA English, University of California, Los Angelos 2015
Ex-student in English 9, Mountain View High School, 2008-2009
van Osdol's essay on London as a literary city "Tyburn, Tragedy, and The Beggar's Opera"
Claudia Wack
BA Women's and Gender Studies, Amherst College 2013
Ex-Editor-in-Chief in my school paper, the Oracle, Mountain View High School, 2008-2009
Wack's Honors Senior Thesis Conclusion "Listening Differently: The Feminist Poetics of Alice Fulton"
Wack's Honors Senior Thesis won the Women's and Gender Studies Department Prize in 2013
In my class, my students...
English 6
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In English 6 in collaboration with the Media Specialist and Technology Coordinator, students choose grade-level books to read, summarize their knowledge of the text through creating book trailers, create QR codes, and paste the codes into the library books so other students can watch the trailer before choosing to borrow the book.
English 9
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In English 9, students learn that there is a pattern to Elizabethan English--a new set of personal pronouns, different verb conjugations, syntactical shifts--and once they can understand these patterns, they learn to decode Shakespeare for understanding.

Students summarize the relationships of characters in To Kill a Mockingbird through song after reading chapter one.
After a unit on literary analysis, students move from analysis to synthesis and create their own short stories that require a major theme, a developed protagonist, symbolism, irony, and other applications of techniques they learned.
Summarize Through
Song
English 10
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In English 10, students are divided into pairs to research a controversial topic of their choice. After reading and analyzing famous persuasive speeches, they research and create an annotated bibliography to organize and properly cite their sources; they write their speech applying classical appeals, rhetorical devices; and finally they deliver their speeches to their peers.
Just a sample of my students' and my work. To see more or discuss possible work >>