BA and MA in Education and Licensure Programs
I love language, how it feels in my mouth, how it looks on the page. I respect the power of eloquence and how careful use of language facilitates opportunity in our economic and academic cultures. Perhaps I love language the most for its capacity to hold meaning, its capacity to help individuals and communities understand their inner and outer worlds. Since the beginning of my career as an educator, I have been deeply interested in the question Mary Rose O’Reilley conveys in her book The Peaceable Classroom, “Is it possible to teach English so that people stop killing each other?” For me the question extends, and I wonder if we can teach in such a way that people stop killing themselves, or parts of themselves, stop killing our landscapes, our environment, our planet.
Such questions have accompanied me through eight years of teaching high school English in various public school settings, seven years of development and facilitation of the Young Adult Writing Project at Arizona State University, and the creation of Earthcurve Studio where I facilitated writing and painting for process.
During my service as a public school teacher, I had the opportunity to co-create a program to support freshman students by integrating math, science and English curriculum with a counseling component. Over the two years I taught in the program, the dropout rate decreased and the grade-point averages increased for participating students. I also had the opportunity to team-teach in the Title I Program and in a mainstreamed classroom with a member of the Special Education Department. As a junior English teacher, I redesigned the curriculum for American Literature to incorporate thematic units that wove personal narrative with the academic concepts. I also developed a service-learning program and accompanied over 200 students as they prepared and served meals to Phoenix’s homeless population at the Andre Center.
My professional life also includes technical writing for medical terminology textbooks, with an emphasis on teaching materials and learning tools, and developing painting and writing programs to facilitated self-awareness. I have conducted writing and painting intensives for young adults, LGBTQ youth and adults, people living with chronic and serious illness, people in the grief process, health care professionals and the general public.
Educational Background: MA, Transformative Language Arts, Goddard College; M.Ed., Secondary Education, Arizona State University; B.S., Business and Public Administration, University of Arizona.
Professional Affiliations: National Council of Teachers of English
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Danielle La Fleur Brooks, MA, M.Ed