Hi, I’m Beth Fehlbaum, an English teacher with more than 2 decades experience in the classroom. I am also a freelance editor and professional author of young adult fiction. I am offering 2 courses at this time:

1. College Essay Application Writing: for high school juniors & seniors who are writing the Personal Statement for their college applications, as well as supplemental essays as required. Through a ten-week course, I will guide your learner through the process of writing an essay that will help college admissions counselors know them. It’s a challenging task, since the word count limit is 650 words. However, I assure you, it can be done, and I guarantee your child will have their statement complete by the end of the course. 

2. No More "I Just Don't Get It" for High School and Middle School English: Among topics covered: 
Persuasive writing, for example, your opinion on school uniforms.
Expository writing, for example, the availability of AI, and how students can use it responsibly.
Narrative writing, for example, a personal reflection on the greatest challenge you have ever overcome.
Research-process writing, for example, writing about a celebrity who had a great downfall.
Short-story reading, for example, Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."
Poetry reading, for example, Kwame Alexander's BOOKED or THE CROSSOVER.
Mentor texts as tools for writing, for example, Ellen Hopkins' lyrical prose and current best-selling YA fiction excerpts.
Basic grammar and sentence construction, for example, compound sentences and correct comma usage with coordinating conjunctions. 

As an educator, I am comfortable with traditional and online instruction and modifying assignments to meet the needs of a variety of learning styles and abilities. I am a quick learner and I am unafraid of technology. I love using Google Classroom as an organizing tool and for efficiently working one-on-one with my students on their writing. 

I bring extensive experience in working with learners of all strengths over the past 26 years. I am Secondary English/Language Arts/Reading/ESL certified, and have spent the bulk of my career as an educator of At-Risk learners. I have been consistently identified as a person with strong skills in making content comprehensible while supporting and scaffolding growth in my students. In addition, for more than three years, I have taught high school seniors how to write their Personal Statement for the Common Application, and I am highly skilled at assisting students in finding their voices as writers. 

I am a demanding teacher: I hold high expectations for myself as well as my students, and because I have the knowledge and skills to provide learners with consistent support, I am able to push them to excel. At the same time, I am supportive, empathetic, gentle, compassionate, and fun, because people learn best in a warm environment where they feel accepted and supported where they are, as they are, who they are.
I hold an M.Ed. with an emphasis on Reading and a B.A. in English, minor Secondary Education. I am also a traditionally-published novelist as well as a freelance editor, and I utilize these skills in the classroom to guide students to experience full literacy: reading and writing must be taught in tandem so that true literacy is achieved. I have the ability and willingness to make publishing “come alive” for students by guiding them through the authentic publishing process. I have done so in the past by helping students grow into authors and publishing their work in some form, i.e. anthologies, classroom magazines, submitting to the online and print magazine, Teen Ink, etc.

I live in the woods of East Texas in a house on a slice of family acreage. The home was built by my family over one very hot humid summer, a task I wish to never to repeat again. This sanctuary-of-sorts is lined by pine trees, and the woods are inhabited by raccoons, possums, and feral cats.  All of these creatures  appear to  consider me their cat-food-providing goddess. There is no place I would rather be.