Emmalea Couch

Emmalea Couch Autobiographical Information May 28, 2009

Hello! My name is Emmalea Couch, and I am originally from Durham, N.C. I am a senior at Appalachian State University majoring in Secondary English Education with minors in Physics and Mathematics.

I lived in Durham, N.C. all of my life, until I came to Boone. My parents are Michael and Vickie, and they live in Durham in the house I grew up in with my younger sister, Ammelia. She is one year younger than me and is currently employed at Pier One. I also have an older brother, Carl. He and his wife Terri have two wonderful children—Noel (9) and Eve (5). Last summer I was their live-in nanny, and I am very close to them.

Growing up I always knew I wanted to teach, but the subject and grade level has changed for me frequently. I always assumed I would teach math or Spanish, my two strongest subjects throughout elementary and secondary school. However, my junior year of high school I entered AP classes for the first time and discovered a true love for English. When I arrived at Appalachian as a N.C. Teaching Fellow in the fall of 2006, I came in intending to major in English. However, a semester in I decided to change my subject to math. With some guidance from the former director of Teaching Fellows, Pam Schram, I eventually declared my major Middle Grades Education, focusing in Math and Language Arts. I originally planned to minor in Spanish, but decided to change to a Physics minor my sophomore year.

Tutoring middle school students at Cranberry Middle School sophomore year I realized two important things: (1) I love middle school kids, and (2) I am currently best suited for teaching high school. So, at the beginning of junior year, I changed my major to Secondary English Education officially.

I finished my requirements for my Physics minor this past semester and have one course left to complete my minor in Mathematics in the fall. I really love all of the core subjects—math, English, science, and history. It was very hard for me to decide what to focus on teaching, but in the long-run I felt that I would be most helpful to students and most enjoy teaching English. I love poetry and literary analysis, and I think I can be effective in passing this love along to others. I believe also that through an English class I can pass on the most important lessons to my students. Not only can I help them learn to read and write, to discuss and think critically, but also I can introduce ideas and have the freedom to facilitate discussions about important life questions, philosophical and moral issues, and many other great things. I believe that other subjects are equally as important as English, but I think I can make a bigger difference in the personal lives of students through an English class. I finally decided against majoring in math because, while it comes so easily for me, it is very difficult for me to teach others. If and when I ever decide to teach middle school, though, I believe I would most enjoy teaching middle school science—ironic since that was not one of my concentrations as a Middles Grades major.

In my free time, I love to read, write (especially poetry), draw, and do sudoku and logic puzzles.