Mrs. Wagner is my favorite teacher, but she is not only a teacher. She is a critic, a book-lover, and supporter of her students. She is a quiz bowl coach, a high school advisor, and a mother. She is a teacher who truly remembers what it means to be our age, as well as a wife and student. She is Brenda Wagner, a seventh and eighth grade English and literature teacher at Saint Thomas More Catholic School.
She is a fantastic teacher, and she makes learning interesting. For example, we play charades to learn our vocabulary terms, and often do artistic projects for our final projects in literature. We also have fantastic discussions about life, often peppered with anecdotes from her childhood or personal experience, which most of my teachers don’t do.
She takes our learning seriously, and makes sure that we learn what we need to learn to succeed. She also helps us become more respectful, and makes sure that we are wearing modest, “Catholic-school-appropriate” clothes, although we sometimes have trouble with that. She also gets disappointed when we don’t behave according to her expectations. On the other hand, she is very proud of us when “her kids” do well. Although she is hard on us, she is still, in my opinion, one of the best teachers I have had.
Mrs. Wagner has greatly affected me. She is the kind of teacher who can push you; at a conference, she bluntly told me that I could be doing more. She suggested that I write outside of school, and perhaps start a blog. I was inspired by that, and so I did. She also has motivated me to borrow books from her lending library; she has helped me pick out good books even if she has time constraints or other, more important things to do.
She instigates writing, especially with me. No matter how crudely-written a piece is, I can show it to her, knowing that she, being thoughtful, will read what I’ve written, and –while not judging it—perhaps offer some advice. She is always very excited to hear about my writing, whether it is writing a play or a book review. Also, she will always talk to me about books or life if I simply want to talk.
Mrs. Wagner is a great teacher. She takes the time to truly teach us, whether it is Shakespeare or verbs, and to go over the content so that we understand and can demonstrate the skill successfully. She truly and sincerely cares about all of her students, and is always excited to see them prosper in the future. In her classes, though I sometimes get lost among the rest of my very outgoing peers, I have a voice and know that I am heard.