Hello there! My name is Chelsey Cashwell, and I am a proud Patriot at Berkmar High School. I teach 9th grade (CP, Honors/Gifted) English Language Arts and a mixed grade Creative Writing course. I received both my B.A. in English (Creative Writing) and  M.A.T. in English Education from Georgia State University.  My most current goal that I actively pursue each day, as an individual and educator, is making the writer’s workshop a permanent part of ELA classes.

I believe in the bottom-up approach when it comes to developing linguistic skills in the ELA classroom: Once students can express the thoughts and ideas closest to their hearts and minds, they can then delve deeper into theories and philosophy that they may not be so familiar with. It’s the same with reading—once a student understands the basic fundamentals of reading (learn to read), they can then move on to denser material (read to learn). I do believe that the reader and writer workshop designs are the best ways to develop a student’s mastery over Language Arts. My blog is mainly centered around personalized learning, but I’ve also included some other classroom management, planning, and assessment commentary in here as well, along with a few writing samples of my own. This blog is my personal toolbox of reliable and effective teaching strategies, garnished with my own creative meanderings.