About
Amber Rinka
Photo by Amy Vosters on Unsplash
I've been teaching English since 2011, first in the United States and now internationally. Today I teach English 9 and IB Diploma English. I hold a North Carolina teaching license and a Master's in Education, though honestly, most of what I know I've learned in the classroom alongside my students.
I love close reading and the conversations a good text can start. I believe mistakes are necessary to learn and that the best thinking often happens in the margins.
Outside the classroom, I'm a mom to a middle schooler and married to a high school English teacher I met when we taught across the hall from one another. When I'm not teaching, you'll usually find me with a book, a Coke Zero, and Taylor Swift on repeat.
In my classroom
My goal as a teacher is for my students to leave the world a little better than they found it, with kindness and humility. I think the humanities are where much of that begins. Reading and writing well is how you come to have a real, positive influence in your community, and learning to analyze and question is what turns a student into an informed global citizen instead of a bystander.
In our class, that often looks like reading a variety of texts from different perspectives, times, and places, annotating closely, writing out our thoughts, holding structured and unstructured discussions, and taking seriously the views of those we may disagree with. Class should be a safe space where students get better at thinking out loud, disagreeing kindly, and backing up what they believe, the kind of skills that matter long after the test.
On my bookshelf
- Favorite book
- The Bell Jar
- by Sylvia Plath
- Currently reading
- The Calamity Club
- by Kathryn Stockett