Shauna Whelan

Teaching Philosophy

 Important skills I want to teach my students

As an English teacher, I have the honor of honing what I consider some of the most important and transferable skills that get taught inside of a school: reading, writing, researching, speaking, dialoguing, and collaborating. I believe that all English students have strengths and weaknesses in these skill sets, so a solid English course should give students the opportunity to practice all of them.

Teaching methods to reach these goals

I try to make every day different within my classroom so that students get to experience a variety of activities. We do everything from sentence-level grammar activities to Socratic seminars. We draw the characters we’re reading about and write creative memoirs. Sometimes students research the history behind a novel and present that information in a slide presentation. I can’t forget the student-favorite Kahoots or the board races when we get into May. I believe that if there are a variety of methods within a classroom, students will hopefully look forward to coming to class. If I get bored and am not having fun, I know that students are definitely bored and not having fun; so, I try to keep class engaging and student-centered.

My favorite projects

After reading the transcendentalists Emerson and Thoreau, students are given choices on how they can demonstrate their knowledge of these foundational works of American literature. Since Seven Hills students are so interesting and multi-talented, students have explored a variety of mediums to do just that. A student has written the music and lyrics of a transcendental song that they then produced in a recording studio. A student wrote and recorded a podcast about his own struggle with whether he should be self-reliant or not. Small groups of students have created transcendental societies complete with flags, laws, and anthems. There have been sculptures and children’s books. The variety of projects points to Seven Hills students’ talent and creativity.

What I like best about teaching at Seven Hills

My students aren’t predictable. At other schools I’ve been at, there started to be typical responses to certain activities and pieces of literature. At Seven Hills, students are dynamic and diverse. I can never predict what they will say or create next. That makes teaching them fun. (Oh, and my students are also funny — they make me laugh with their good-spirited humor every day).