I have already gained so much from this Fellowship!  I have met some of the most fascinating and dedicated professionals who are open and ready to share and listen!  I have experienced thoughtfully relevant professional development workshops and break outs over the past ten days.  So, in fact, I have exceeded my original expectations and I have not really completed half of the NCCAT experience!

At the most basic level, I hope to build life-long professional and personal relationships.  And, naturally, I intend to garner valuable classroom tools to share with my regional colleagues.  I also want to encourage colleagues to look for opportunities to join their own Kenan Fellowship and renew and strengthen their professional passion.  But my purpose as a fellow this inaugural year is to create a Common Core curriculum unit for eighth grade ELA classrooms that can serve as a model of best practices and a template on which North Carolina educators can confidently build future units.