Photo Credit: Jordan Cox[/caption]Orange High School has many new teachers for the 2014-2015 school year. One addition to the English Department is Meredith Newlin, who teaches English I and II.
Newlin came to teach at Orange after teaching summer school here this past summer. “I love all the other teachers and the overall atmosphere,” says Newlin. She said she loves all of the students here, their ability to work hard, and their willingness to learn. “I’ve missed teaching high school, and I’m glad to be back,” said Newlin.
This year marks Newlin’s 10th year of teaching. She is very fond of writing and reading. She used to work for a magazine before she began teaching. When she’s not teaching, she enjoys participating in activities outdoors. She likes hiking or running, or just any outdoors-related activity. Along with exploring the great outdoors, Newlin loves spending time with her one-year-old daughter, Lola.
What encouraging do students here at OHS need? According to Newlin, they don’t need any encouragement! She believes that all the students here are doing fantastic and don’t need any advice. “Don’t sweat the small stuff and believe in yourself,” is the advice she gives the students if they really needed it.
Newlin decided to be an English teacher because she loves to build the confidence of her students as readers and writers. She is excited to be here for her 10th anniversary of teaching, and we’re lucky to have her!
Photo Credit: Yearbook Reflections. Author hands out books to students[/caption]James Maxey, a local author, came to talk to Orange students about his career as a writer and what steps can be taken to ensure a successful journey as an author. Maxey primarily writes science fiction/fantasy novels and superhero novels. He also has written poetry and a novel that includes a soundtrack.
Maxey got his career start as a kid when he became an avid reader. He loved pulp fiction and comic books. His daydreaming of dragons and superheros eventually led to him writing stories himself.
He has published 10 novels, and has two more that are in the works currently. They are called Cut Up Girl and Bad Wizard. Maxey has published series of works such as the Dragon Age trilogy and the Dragon Apocalypse novels. He has also written anthologies and over 20 short stories.
While talking about how being an author has affected his life, Maxey said, “I think that it helps me deal with life’s pressure.” He spoke about how authors are always actively thinking of their stories, how he is always thinking two to three books ahead, and how, as he has gotten older, his characters have grown too.
The pressure of releasing a new book gets to every author. Maxey says that the promotional work is very stressful and the pressure is always on waiting for reviews to come in about a month after the time the book is put out for sale.
During his presentation, Maxey spoke about six impossible steps that can help you become a professional author. The first was that you have to always be original but also believe that there is nothing new under the sun. The second was to write with confidence but always doubt yourself. Thirdly, you have to follow the rules but also break all of them. The fourth step is to be enthusiastic to create the best work but also work tediously and be sick of every word you write. The fifth step was to know that in order to write a good novel you must first write a terrible one. Lastly, you will know you’re on the path to success when you start to build up a lot of failures.
Maxey talked about his personal experience of first writing short stories and then a lot of poetry. He went through a string of bad jobs around 25 years old and finally got his big break for a novel at 39.
At the end of his presentation, he held a trivia session where students had the chance to win one of his books. All his books are available at Purple Crow Books in Hillsborough and some of them are available at Barnes and Noble. Plus all of them are available as e-books. He is James Maxey on Facebook and also has a blog he updates frequently, Dragonprophet.blogspot.com.
This year at Orange High we have a wonderful array of new faculty and staff members. One of these is KayCee Butcher, a new English II teacher who has a passion for her students and the school she works at.
Butcher is originally from Wilson, North Carolina. She went to UNC-Chapel Hill as a Teaching Fellow. Butcher knew she wanted to be a English teacher since she was in high school. For Butcher, it just “made sense” because of her love for working with students, English being her favorite subject, and her enjoyment of high school. It was her plan to teach a high school class due to her wanting to be able to hold a conversation with her students. Not only that, but she has a love for being interactive with her students. She said, “I take my students everywhere with me. They’re always with me.”
Butcher said her favorite part of teaching is “my lovely students,” and that teaching is easier than many people believe it is. When asked about her inspiration for becoming a teacher, she said that she did not have just one teacher that made her want to teach. "It’s the only thing that made sense for me to do with my life… I can’t see myself doing anything else right now.”
Butcher thinks that Orange has an exemplary student body and a wonderful faculty. She says that she has been warmly welcomed and that it’s a great way to meet all different kinds of people. She believes that Orange is a lot like her high school, and that the diversity is one of the qualities that makes it so special.
As one of the newest and youngest teachers here, and well as her bubbly personality, makes her more likely to connect on another level with students. Butcher has just graduated college at UNC, her all-time dream school. She traveled to China to teach for a couple months and said that Chinese educations are vastly different from American educations. Classes start at 9 am and end at 9 pm. For six months she lived in Spain. She also traveled to Africa for a couple months. She got a touch of all different education systems, including ours.
Butcher briefly commented on Banned Books Week, saying, “ It's awful. I think that when books are banned and expression and knowledge is limited, I think that’s dangerous.” She also mentioned student laptops, saying that she loves the fact we get to work with technology and help the environment unlike students at many other schools.
So with her new job and bright personality, we welcome Ms. KayCee Butcher with open arms here to Orange High School.
Mark Greenstreet explains his teaching style during an interview.[/caption]Mark Greenstreet feels honored to have become the 2013 Teacher of the Year. “I'm surrounded amongst so many talented teachers. I'm greatly honored.” Greenstreet has ten years of experience in the classroom. He has taught at OHS for four years. He previously taught at Hillside High School in Durham, where he was Teacher of the Year during his fifth year of teaching.
Greenstreet said that the most important things in his life are literature, young people, and having a passion for social change. For him, teaching is like “saving lives.” He loves to help young people find their place in the world.
When Greenstreet teaches he does more than a typical teacher. He helps students learn through performances. Greenstreet spoke about reaching out to students by having conversations with them and inspiring them through music and raps that relate to real life. His first goal is to make sure his students are comfortable with things that are going on. “There’s no right or wrong [in my class],” Greenstreet says. “I'm consistently creating a character in my mind.” He believes that students learn more when they are comfortable.
His biggest inspiration was his tenth grade teacher Rob Slater. Slater helped him realize that in class a teacher doesn’t teach you unnecessary things. Everything you are taught can be used in life. Greenstreet explained how he was able to work with the man that inspired his mentor in high school. Slater was in a class taught by a man named Bill Oliver. When he grew up and took a job at OHS, he got to meet Oliver and work with him.
This year, Greenstreet is teaching a new public speaking class. Greenstreet thinks it’s the most important skill a person can learn. “I want to help people take off their masks and share their voice within them... It’s basically literature in action.”
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Greenstreet teaches 9th grade English, as well as Public Speaking.[/caption]
The workshop started out with an NPR clip of students at a Washington D.C. school stating how they wished they would have written their college essays before the turmoil of fall semester. Cox advised the juniors to write six or seven drafts of their essays before sending them to colleges and to start them during summer. He also handed out notes of different essay questions asked on the Common Application which is accepted by many local colleges such as UNC-CH, Wake Forest, and Duke. The notes also included tips for writing the essay which must be between 250 to 650 words. Cox said that the word count, however, should be the last thing on the student’s mind when first writing their essay.
McLaughlin started off with having the students close their eyes and imagine walking to their front door. He asked them specific questions to remember like “what sounds do you hear as you are walking up to your house?” and “how do you feel as you walk into your house?” Including feelings in the essay were stressed because they are very important in creating a connection between the writer and reader.
The students were allowed to then write for five minutes and start their essay to that question. A few students such as Ryan Farrell and Anastasia Zitko offered to read their essay out loud. Alliteration, onomatopoeia, and imagery is what made their writing effective according to Cox. For the students’ braveness of reading out loud, they were awarded slinkys.
A packet of three student essays that were sent to Duke were passed around to the students. After reading them they discussed which ones were more effective and why. All of the essays were ones that were adequate though most students agreed that the last essay was far superior to the other two.
The workshop concluded with students being able to ask Mr. McLaughlin questions. Some students even stayed after to have specific, elaborate questions answered.