In West Babylon High School, on the South Shore of Long Island, I would read enough to keep up with class discussions, more interested in music or writing. Though I didn’t read with the deftness I’d like to have, I did love books. And it was in college that my love of reading took hold in a new way.
After a brief stint as a vocal performance major in music school, I completed my undergraduate work at Fordham University, earning a BA in philosophy and English. It was during this time at Fordham that I became infatuated by the jazz scene in New York City, frequenting jazz clubs and working as a front of house manager for Jazz at Lincoln Center. Music and letters became fused together for me at this time, a fusion that would recur both in my own classrooms as an English teacher and as a doctoral student of education.
I completed my MA in English Education at Teachers College, Columbia University in the summer of 2003. After accepting a position teaching high school English at the New York City Lab School (www.nyclabschool.org), I began experimenting in the classroom with the relationship between music and literature. Over the years, this love of two muses has resulted in several projects in the English classroom, including: Illuminating Chaucer, where 9th grade students rapped social critiques in response to Canterbury Tales; and The Shakes, where 9th grade students rapped formal arguments about thematic issues raised in Romeo and Juliet. Both these projects resulted in the publication of student work and music with the help of the Student Press Initiative at Teachers College (www.publishspi.org). In addition, I wrote about my classroom experience creating Illuminating Chaucer in an article for English Journal. Other articles and presentations at conferences are on the way in the months year to come as well.
I have continued working at the Lab School while pursuing my doctorate as well as teaching student teaching seminars at Teachers College and a course called Critical Approaches to Literature this past summer. My work at both Lab School and Teachers College has led me to explore the nature of reading in classrooms and especially re-readings. Recent work from my high school classroom can be found at www.rereaders.org.
I live in Manhattan with my wife, Kerry, and our odd cats, Jean-Luc and Lil Mo.
