ENGL 389 CLASS PROFILE PAGE

LEE TORDA 310 Tillinghast Hall
508.531.2436/ltorda@bridgew.edu/www.leetorda.com
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All office hours for students will be held on Zoom until further notice.
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M&W 12:30-1:30, T 4:00-5:00, and by appointment
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Colton: I’m a multipurpose service dog. and the best boy in the world. I’m two years old and I’m a golden retriever. I have a brother named Trix and a sister named JoJo. JoJo steals my toys and bites me. I hate her, but she’s my best dog friend, and I love her. I'm really into bears. My favorite store in the whole entire world is build a bear workshop. I get to make my friends there. I made my first friend there last year, his name is Bear. I had to go back for my birthday, so I got another bear and named it Birthday Bear. Now I have two bears. Bear has no stuffing left in his body, one arm is hanging on for dear life, and half his face it is missing. He also smells really bad. For Christmas this year I also got a bear that’s bigger than me. I like that one. I know a lot of tricks. I can crawl, sit, lay down, alert my mom when she’s having medical episodes (in many different ways), shut doors, shake hands, pick things up and turn on and off light switches. I’m still working on the last two though. I love going to school. What better school to go to than one with the mascot of a bear? Every class morning, I wake up ready to go and wait by my gear for my mom to put it on. The best part of the school day is when I finish and mom gives me my pupaccinos from Starbucks.

Alana Alexiou: I am a junior majoring in both Elementary Education and English and plan on becoming a 4th grade English teacher. I first came to college as a business major but quickly realized that wasn’t for me. I have always loved working with kids, and the thought of being a teacher actually made me excited because I finally started to feel passionate about my future. I babysat since I was 15 and worked in the daycare program at my high school for all 4 years, but I never thought about making a career out of working with children. However, now I am dedicated to soaking in everything I am learning here about teaching so that I can be the best teacher possible and make a difference in as many little lives as I can. I live in Brockton where I grew up living with my mom, stepdad, brother, grandmother and my dog Niko who we have had since I was in 5th grade, a shih tzu who is now 14! I love dogs and just recently got my own dog, a miniature Pitbull named Kiki. When I’m not at school or spending time with my dogs (they bring me peace), I am working. I've worked at the same pizza/sub shop since I was 16. Like a lot of other college students, my life is juggling my school work with my work hours.

Nik Anninos: I am a Senior majoring in Writing & Writing Studies. My introduction to the arts started at the age of 3 years old when I started to learn how to play drums. Music was my first love, and I had a lot of success in that area. I played music constantly up until I was 18 years old, when I realized that I was burned out on music altogether and decided to take a break from it. In terms of other interests, halfway through high school is when I started to get into photography. Right now, I am teaching myself how to paint in my spare time. I don’t know why, but for some reason, I have a fascination for visuals and imagery, which lead me to pursue learning more. I also love animals, especially dogs, and have lived with them all my life. I currently have an 11-year-old labradoodle named Sherman and am about to get a 2-month-old French Bulldog named Ernie. I’m also interested in mental health. Last year I was diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and am always thinking of ways to treat it properly, whether it’s through talking to someone, riding my bike to get lost in nature, or watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe play out on my screen. It’s an ongoing journey, but I believe that no matter how bad things get, there’s always light at the end of the tunnel.

Emily Bachman: I am a sophomore Psychology major with a minor in Management. I picked psychology as my major because I have always been interested in how the brain works and what others are thinking. When I was younger, I loved mystery books. I never knew why I liked mystery the best, but now it all makes sense. I am constantly overthinking everything and analyzing other people. I enjoyed analyzing the main characters. As an adult, I have learned to love reading and writing, but I do not think I always did. I hated writing and reading in middle school and high school because I was not good at it. I never liked doing the assigned reading for elementary school because I always thought it was boring and useless, but I am sure that everyone at that age could agree with that statement. I started enjoying my love of reading probably around the summer after graduating high school when we were all stuck in quarantine. Now that I am almost twenty years old, I like romantic novel-type books because they make me super happy to read. My favorite romantic novel that I have read within the past few years has to be Meant to Be. I used to think that mathematics was my favorite because I was so good at it, but now that I am in college, reading and writing are my favorite. I am very excited to take this class because young adult books are something that I have been getting more into lately.

Gabby Curtin: If I was to tell the world everything about me, it would be a few grand things, and then pages of information that no one would be interested in. But that’s completely ok. I like who I am, for the most part. I’m almost twenty-two years old and I’m an English major with a concentration in creative writing. I have what I like to call a mystical mind. I have bipolar disorder and severe anxieties that make my life a struggle, but they also cause me to be creative. My mind is full of different stories and scenes, so many that it would take over a year to write them all down. Writing is definitely my passion in life. To be a published author would be the biggest dream come true. I have recently had an idea for a young adult book that I can’t get out of my mind. I feel like this could be one of my breakthrough stories. Until I can get published, I hope to work at a publishing company where I can read all day and learn more about the publishing field. Something else to know about me is that I am a huge animal person. I have a horse, three dogs, two bunnies, thirteen chickens, two hedgehogs, two tortoises and an excessive amount of guinea pigs. As many animals as that may be, I love all of them with every millimeter of my heart. One friend people will see tagged along with me is my service dog, and the most special boy there is, Colton.

Alexa Delling: I am a junior with a double major in Early Childhood Education and English and a concentration in creative writing. My goal is to become a second-grade teacher where I will teach students to read and write at such a pivotal time in their educational career. I have always had a passion for helping others which started as small as giving the people in my life advice and guidance. I debated going into the medical field and or the esthetician field, but I knew at heart teaching and the use of my creativity was my passion. This large part of my life carries over into why I want to become a teacher. I hope to promote equal opportunity within my classroom and the importance of being kind to others always, which society needs more of. I believe if I can install the importance of equality and kindness within my second graders, they will grow up to be amazing and caring human beings. As well as teaching, I would love to keep my creative writing passion flowing and produce works for publication. In my writing workshop last semester, my professor opened doors to the world of publishing. This was extremely helpful and was something I always wondered how it worked. My goal at this moment of time is to pass my MTELS and become licensed to teach in Massachusetts, which will then bring me to my senior year where I will student teach!

Brandon Gebhart: is a writer from the USA who attended college in Omaha Nebraska (their hometown) as well as Boston Massachusetts. His prized possession is a plague doctor plushy that sits front and center on the top shelf in his room. Golden Retrievers are what he considers the pinnacle of all pets, and he would gladly write a paper to prove it. His favored genre is fantasy, typically within the Young Adult category. He originally hated reading in grade school until first contact with fairytales, Greek mythology, and later fiction works (the first of which was The Guardians of Ga’Hool). Family exposed him to other hobbies and fictional settings, expanding his interest to science fiction and sci-fi-fantasy. The most influential experiences were with online friends who introduced him to the table top role playing game (TTRPG) genre where he developed an interest in creating his own setting. The influence of both virtual and physical games has pushed his focus towards easy-to-read formats and language that are crucial to the hobbies. Form, design, style, and personality are all key premises to his writing style. This focus on entertainment writing does little to help with most academic writing, however, which turns out rather blunt and short.

Matt Marini: I am a sophomore as well as a commuter student residing in Hanson, Massachusetts. As some of you may notice, my last name is of strong Italian descent. That is because my grandparents, on my father’s side, are immigrants from Italy. They came to America in the 1960’s and have lived in Quincy Massachusetts ever since. I have strong passions for baseball and martial arts. I an avid watcher of baseball and coach it at the youth level. Currently I play in a men’s league over the summer, and I played actively all the way through high school. As for my martial arts obsession, I actively partake in kickboxing as well as watching mixed martial arts and boxing in my free time. The third passion of mine is writing. Ever since I was a freshman in high school, I wanted to find myself working in a field that has writing of some kind. I am currently majoring in writing studies, and I am looking to declare a minor in communications next year. With this education, I hope to become a sportswriter or editor for a major media company. I have previous experience writing for various small sports media groups that are local to the Boston area, and if I could branch out into bigger companies and make a living writing about what I love, that would be my dream scenario.

Monique Santos: I’m a transfer student who is passionate about reading, writing and everything in between of the English field. I transferred from Bristol Community College with a major in Liberal Arts and Humanities and at Bridgewater, my major is English with a concentration in writing and writing studies. Also, at BSU I have a minor in management. Ever since I was young, I developed a love for not only reading but also writing. This then caused me to look more into opportunities for my future, since I was always the type of person to look forward and figure out what I wanted to do. While I continued through my education and learned more about myself and my interests, which include traveling, basketball, music and more, I eventually figured that I would like to try editing and publishing in an attempt to help others and myself along with our writing journeys. Additionally, since my high school experience was vocational, I had a businesslike background, further creating another interest. Although, my interest in business is not as strong as English, I still knew I wanted to add some form of business in my life, hence my reasoning towards having a minor in management. In order to combine these two contrasting fields, I have thought of perhaps working in management positions in publishing/editing or to create a company of my own.

Tyler Solomon: I am a senior with a double major in Psychology and History. I also have two minors, writing studies and theatre arts. I am attracted to psychology because I like the idea of helping people. Mental illnesses are invisible problems that are not treated properly. Sometimes people can be antagonized for having depression or being bipolar. As someone who suffered from anxiety, I know what it is like to live with a mental disorder. I also wanted to pursue history because it is important to learn what happened in the past. History is a representation of how culture and society changed throughout human history. I came from a town with no diversity; I did not have that many friends and liked superheroes and scary movies. I also lived with my grandmother. She was the legal guardian and passed away in 2019. After losing someone I considered a parent I felt an emptiness that continued to grow in me like a plant. Losing a relative is a natural process of life that people, unfortunately, have to endeavor to live with but it’s important to keep going. I decided to add a writing minor for numerous reasons: for starters it could help me improve upon my writing skills. Also, writing is a tool that allows people to be creative and construct stories that are based on true events or complete fiction. Writing allows the person to create a world of their own. This is why I like writing.

Julia Sullivan: I’m a Junior majoring in Elementary Education and English and hoping to become a teacher for any grade from first through third, though my preference would be in second grade. I am in the five-year master’s program for education majors, and I am doing an internship this summer where I work with English language learners and learn about STEM in Elementary school. I live in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and when I’m not in school I work as a substitute teacher for the Peabody Elementary School in Cambridge, and I am building sub for grades junior kindergarten through grade five, including special start and all the specials in the building. I also babysit multiple different families in my spare time, which is a great experience, and I have been doing it since I was 10. I love working with children and teaching children to love learning. I want to be a teacher that students feel that they can talk to and who will go above and beyond to help them succeed. My third-grade teacher inspired me to be this kind of teacher because she was that for me. I am still in touch with her now and have worked in her classroom whenever I had the chance for observation hours and student teaching. I enjoy painting, drawing, yoga, hanging out with friends, watching television, and cooking.

James Tickle: I’ve been writing creatively for about six, seven years now and, in that time, I’ve written a few short stories, a handful of poems, and, as of winter break, I’ve completed the draft of a six-arc fantasy story. I am a huge fantasy and Syfy nerd at heart. When I was eight, I read The Hobbit and watched the original Star Wars trilogy, and I’ve never looked back since. Some of my favorite and most inspirational books, TV series, and movies include the aforementioned, The Lord of the Rings, the Witcher series, all of Narnia, and Avatar the Last Airbender. I love experiencing new stories, new worlds, and new ideas across all mediums of entertainment, from the big screen, to video games, to books. Written stories are my favorite though, I think the ability they give us to peer inside the characters’ minds is something unmatchable. I was born here in Massachusetts, and I currently live in Swansea and commute to BSU four days a week. I’ve been blown away by how strong this English department is. Every class I’ve taken has taught me how to be a better writer and a more deliberate reader in small, but distinct ways, and I love that. It’s so awesome. I feel like I learn something new with everything I write and everything I read, and I can’t wait to dive deep into this class.

Lee Torda: I am an Associate Professor of English here at BSU. Like the sign says, this is my 21st year at BSU. I'm very grateful to have gotten to work with so many really exceptional students during that time. I really got into YA because of two former students, Anne Smith and Briana McDonald, who wanted to work on YA lit from different angles for Adrian Tinsley Summer Grant projects (both successfully funded). Anne wanted to look at how YA could serve as "bridge texts" in the secondary education classroom; and Brianna was at work on a YA novel. Happy to say Anne is joyously teaching 9th graders on the Cape, and Brianna just recently published her first YA novel after completing her MFA. We all owe them a debt of gratitude for expanding my YA interest and knowledge. In my free time I like to clean, read, run, and explore my new home of 6 months, New Bedford, where I live with my husband, three aged cats, and my fantasy dog that I will one day adopt named Benny. I'm originally from Cleveland, OH, and I love my hometown, but I think it would be hard to move away from the ocean at this point. Looking forward to our semester together.