Whether it be leading a writing workshop at a jail or sponsoring a club where student writers can come and connect, Sarah Rossi knows what to do.  Rossi is an English teacher with a variety of interests pertaining to language arts.

     This is Rossi’s first year not only teaching at Eaglecrest High School, but also her first year teaching her own class. Growing up, both her parents were teachers. Although they’ve both now retired, she acknowledges that even if her parents’ careers have ended, her career is just beginning. She transitioned into Eaglecrest at an extremely fast but comfortable pace and has found her place in the school as a freshman and sophomore Honors English teacher.

    Rossi’s favorite part of teaching her own class is developing classroom culture. Rossi has a way of teaching she calls classroom culture.

    ”Everyone feels safe and comfortable in who they are and that their voice matters because… not in every aspect of our lives do we feel like we get to share our voice and who we are, so I want my classroom to reflect that,” Rossi said.

    Building firm relationships with her students is a very important aspect of Rossi’s career. She believes that it is important to find a student’s interests and hobbies when they are in class with her so she can know them better.

         “I just love building those relationships early on because in student teaching you come in the middle of the year, but this time I get to start building those relationships day one,” she said.

   To further these classroom culture relationships, Rossi invests her Mondays after school sponsoring Creative Writing Club.

         “[Creative Writing Club is] a place to share what we’ve all been working on… and also a place to just enjoy some different writing activities that can inspire…” Rossi said.

    Inspiring students and young adults isn’t just a current interest of Rossi but a very old love that she has always possessed. In college, she would lead writing workshops for young adults who had as much a love of writing as she did. She would also find herself leading other workshops in jails, where she believed, “…the spaces of confinement and getting literacy in there is really important.”

    Sarah Rossi may be a new teacher, but she has done what she has always loved to do whether it be teaching language arts in a jail for young adults or a school. Rossi knows how powerful language can be.

    “Anyone can connect over the power of stories,” Rossi said.