Jennifer Sykes 02/27/2021

Jenny Sykes, a fourteen year veteran of the ELA classroom in Lansing, Michigan, has spent her years so far with 7th and 8th grade students at a large Catholic school. She also has navigated the challenging expectations of raising two young children (now three and eight years old) and having her husband working from home as well. This took incredible orchestration, planning with predictable schedules, and creativity. Her love for writing developed in middle school when she was introduced to strong female characters like Hermione Granger in the Harry Potter series and started imitating poetry of strong female writers like Maya Angelou. Jennifer also finds great inspiration from music and lyrics that follow poetic forms. She believes that giving students the opportunity to write gives them the opportunity to share their voice. Writing gives students the outlet necessary to convey deep emotion and struggles they face on a daily basis inside the classroom and at home. She also believes that providing students with platforms that allow their writing to be shared with their peers to give and receive feedback is a powerful way to build relationships.  Her goals have been to guide that growth as she encourages students to find their voices even and maybe more so in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic. Switching to online platforms for teaching and then back to in-person teaching has been challenging, but this teacher has learned quickly how to use the platform to enhance student growth and learning in ways that far surpass expectations. Writing through the pandemic has allowed her and subsequently her students to find new strength in building a better community as a cohesive educational family. If anything, this experience with writing and the pandemic has solidified Jenny’s understanding that writing to afford student voice in a range of topics is central to students’ success across the broader spectrum of all disciplines.