Dear School Administrator, As my journey towards becoming a teacher begins the final lap, I find myself at a very important

cornerstone of my life. My student teaching experience will be one that shapes the rest of my career as an educator. I hope to fulfill all the duties as a teacher while at your school. History is a great passion of mine and I hope to share it with my students. I have had experience in both middle and high school positions; however, I believe a position at a high school will be best suited for me. While middle school is an important time for adolescents to enhance their learning and take on more responsibility, I think the types of lesson plans I have made during my middle school experiences make me feel like I am not fully using my skills to communicate with students effectively. As a student teacher in high school, I hope to create diverse, intellectual, and captivating lessons. Students of all ages can learn to appreciate history, critical, thinking, and reflections decisions made in the past that affect present day. As a future educator, I plan to take the skills I learned through the education program at the University of Illinois into my classroom in order to create a well-organized and student-centered atmosphere. With a variety of tools in my repertoire, I will provide my students with an array of activities that involve multiple uses of primary sources, technology, and further secondary readings. I will also encourage a safe and welcoming environment for each learning style and personality I have in my classroom. If you choose my for your school, I will perform at my highest level to benefit both my students education and my continued learning in this important professional career. I have had a special interest in teaching for the longest I can remember. Although a few other interesting career ideas popped up sporadically throughout my youth, teaching always ended up being the most ideal. As a student, I was always excited to work and learn more. I had teachers that made me eager to learn. I hope to be one of those teachers for my students in the future; to be the inspiration for such a passionate career would be such a personal and accomplishing moment. Eighth grade and high school played a particular role in my development as a student and dreams of becoming a teacher. My 8th grade history teacher made me fall in love with history. Apart from being a fair and kind teacher, he was an amazing storyteller. Despite a focus on social science curriculum being student-centered, I believe certain points in history deserve special attention at explaining and painting a picture. My 8th grade teacher was able to orate a battle as if it happened yesterday. The unique attention to detail and depth in his knowledge inspired me to be like him. Sophomore year in high school I utilized my homeroom time to become a teachers aid. I helped organize papers and grade certain homework assignments and activities. Seeing a classroom from a working perspective gave me insight to how much hard work a teacher does in a days time. This gave me more respect to this profession as well. After a year of being a teachers aid, I moved on to use my homeroom time as Spanish tutor. For two years, I tutored Spanish levels 1-3 with freshman, sophomores, and juniors. Spanish was another subject I loved in high school, so helping my peers with it was easy and enjoyable. During those two years I learned I had a particular interest in helping others. It became one of my proudest moments when a younger student would come back the next day and tell me about her Spanish test and her good grade. A certain pleasure arises from such praise and thanks from a student when I am only doing something I love.

As I set my sights high for the University of Illinois, I began my freshman year on track for applying to the Secondary Education program. I had to complete fifty hours of tutoring in order to do so. I was able to try out different types of tutoring: ESL homeroom, regular study hall, and one on one homework time. During these hours, I was mostly able to accomplish them in the Champaign area, which is where I have applied to student teach spring 2014. The differences in middle and high school from my own have given me a broader sense of the diversity we have here in the United States. Seeing these differences give me the opportunity to challenge myself as a teacher and young adult. My Early Field Experience also provided me with experiences different than what I had as a student back home. Class schedules were blockstyle with eighty-minute periods and my classes ranged from honors to academic; different girl to boy ratios; and ESL students participating in regular class. From other teaching and observation experiences, I have noted the different techniques for cramming material in a forty minutes class versus an eighty-minute class. I have learned from my peers and adapted to fit the needs of my students and their personalities in order to create a coherent and yet diverse lesson. As a student teacher in your district, I will certainly be up to the challenge to meet the needs of the students.