Hi, I'm Michelle.
I'm a teacher who writes and codes, and this little shop is where those two loves meet.
I started my career in elementary classrooms, and I have never really left them. I spent seven years teaching in schools on the Eastern Cherokee Reservation in North Carolina, and then eleven years teaching on the Navajo Nation, along with more years in state public schools. I've taught in buildings with every new gadget and in buildings where we shared one cart of laptops between grades. Those years taught me that a good lesson has to work on a Tuesday afternoon with whatever you have in front of you.
That is why so many of my resources are unplugged or run in a plain web browser. When kids pretend to be a robot and walk a path across the floor, they learn what an algorithm is without a single device. When they build a sentence one picture card at a time, they can see exactly where the capital and the period go.
Why writing and coding?
They are closer than they look. A clear sentence and a working program both need ideas put in the right order, so someone else can follow them. Both need revising. Kids who learn to find and fix a "bug" in their code start looking at their writing the same way, and I love watching that click.
What I do now
Today I teach computer science at the college level, and I still design everything here with my K-5 teachers in mind. I'm also an author, so writing is part of my everyday life, not just something I teach. I build classroom apps, too: Debuggle, a block coding app where challenges check themselves, and RoutineBoard, a projected board that keeps your whole routine on one screen.
My promise to you
Every resource I make is complete. You get directions anyone could pick up and teach, pages that print cleanly on a school copier, answer keys, and slides you can project. If something isn't working for your class, email me at hello@michellewritesandcodes.com. I read every message.
Thank you for the work you do every day.
Michelle