Dear Ms. Ballis, 

I, Will Schenk, was a member of your 6th grade class during the 2010-2011 school year at Center School. I am currently attending Temple University where my English teacher assigned me to write a letter to a former teacher. 

I wanted to say that your teaching style was most beneficial in helping me overcome Dyslexia. You conducted your class with a few different methods and held students with higher expectations. A lot of other teachers and students found your style to be too tough, but I and a few classmates who have stayed in contact with each other, remember your class as extremely transformative. If we took your class every year since 2011, we would be geniuses by now. 

At the beginning of every day, we spent 20 minutes reading one-on-one with a partner. You made us sit down and read outloud, something that no other teacher assigned. Other teachers had us read in a large group, what a way to make us terrified of reading. Or they had us read by ourselves, reading that would never get done. You understood that consistent, oral, and partnered reading was most effective, and it helped me greatly. 

You also had us consistently practice typing, a skill that has been extremely beneficial to me throughout the years. 

History was also an interesting aspect of your class. Never before nor after your class had any teacher of mine taught a single aspect of Asian or African History. It seems as if half of world’s history is just not considered to be taught in American schools, and maybe you recognized this and decided to make it a part of your class. 

I hope you are doing well and I wanted to say that you were a transformative teacher in my life. 

Sincerely, 

Will Schenk