My MEL Experiences

• Student/teacher relationship: In my junior year AP US History class, my teacher exemplified all of the qualities Muir lists for a good relationship. He did things like play songs having to do with history and culture and had an amazing sense of humor with students. He made a very safe environment for students, especially when we had debates in class.  
  
• Helping Students Succeed: My freshman year math teacher had high expectations and very high confidence in our abilities. He had a knack for making sure that every single student in the class had a deep understanding of the concepts we were dealing with before he would move on to anything else.  It may have made the class move a little slower, but he was confident that every student could get it - and every one did!
• Hands-On: During my junior year, my English teacher was finding it difficult to teach poetry (poetry was rarely addressed in my school system, and I think she tried to implement it herself).  She figured that the best way she could teach us about writing poetry was to print off descriptions of different poem styles like acrostics, sonnets, haikus, or sestinas and having us write examples in class, letting us read them to the class the next day.
• Avoid Rewards: Once in an English class, we were asked if we wanted to have a short story reading for stories we had written in class. The students agreed that we would like to if we could make hot chocolate and bring in cookies, and the teacher agreed. However, on the day of the reading, we were too busy eating and drinking, and only a few people shared their stories. It was also hard for us to do sharing in the future because we would always request that type of thing again.
• Context: My senior English class dedicated a unit to writing for the real world, including college essays, job applications, business letters, and other professional writing. It wasn't as in depth as other professional writing I've learned to do since then, but it was definitely valuable at the time, especially the college essay portion.