Day 9 - New Teacher Spotlight - Ms. Arrington - MSMS Blog

Ms. Arrington asks her students to explain the difference between a story’s theme and moral.

Over the summer, we hired a new seventh grade ELA teacher to take Mrs. Kotarakos’ place on 7A, who had taken David’s spot on 8A. Sarah Arrington had this to say about her teaching background and hopes for this year:

Hello, my name is Sarah Arrington, and I am the new English Language Arts teacher on team 7A.  I am very excited to be joining the wonderful staff at the Marshall Simonds Middle School, and I cannot wait to get started.  I have worked in a vast variety of educational settings, from care centers for adults with special needs, to Preschool Special Olympics programs, to curriculum design. I received my bachelor’s degree as a double major in English literature and Secondary Education in 2012. I have both New Hampshire and Massachusetts certification in English Language Arts grades 5 – 12.  I worked at the Pelham Memorial School from 2012 to 2014 as a Literacy Tutor / Curriculum Coordinator. In this position, I worked with special education students, parents, case managers and classroom teachers to create and implement modified curriculum for inclusion classrooms, as well as to help other educators learn how to modify curriculum and differentiate instruction for their own classrooms.

I was then hired in August of 2014 for a one year English teaching position at the Marshall Middle School in Billerica, (another Marshall Middle!)  where I taught seventh and eighth grade English. I also ran the Literary Magazine after school, where students were able to write, illustrate, and finally publish their stories in a school magazine.  I am trying to start something similar at the Marshall Simonds this year with my Literary Magazine Activity Block.  So far we only have four students, but I am hoping that more students will join us when they hear more about the wonderful work we are doing.  If your child likes to write or draw, send them my way!

I have heard very exciting things about Marshall Simonds and about the town of Burlington as a whole.  I am impressed by the enthusiastic commitment to students, and by the continuous effort to improve the learning environment.  It has been a truly great first couple of weeks, and I am convinced that we are going to have a great year.  We will be covering a wide variety of topics and skills throughout this school year.  We will be reading short stories, novels, and nonfiction pieces.  We will also be doing all sorts of writing, including creative writing, poetry writing, and essay writing.  Each day will consist of different classroom activities and methods, including class discussion, group projects,  and debate.  I am hoping that my genuine love and enthusiasm for literature will help make my classroom an exciting place to be, and help me turn reluctant readers into believers.

Ms. Arrington goes over her class’ do-now activity at the beginning of class.

We’d like to welcome Ms. Arrington to our school and wish her and her students a great year! To visit Ms. Arrington’s classroom blog, click here.