Eric Kinne

Ed.M. L&L '04

I taught 9th and 10th grade English for two years through the Teach For America program in a small town on the border of Mexico in South Texas. I'm originally from Maine, and after two years in the hot and humid Rio Grande Valley (RGV) I came to Harvard to pursue a master's degree in Language and Literacy. After completing the master's program, I realized that the Texan in me had overtaken the Mainer in me, so I returned to the RGV as a program director with Teach For America. Currently I support 57 first and second year teachers across all content areas and grade levels. This entails everything from observing their teaching and providing feedback to planning and facilitating content-specific collaborative teams to connecting teachers to great resources that will help them improve. I love all things literacy (especially given that so many of our students here are behind in reading and writing levels), and this year I'm spearheading a new effort to train our teachers in literacy. I'll be leading monthly seminars on elementary, content, and ELA literacy strategies, and I'm excited to see how this plays out in classrooms across the RGV. My job is great, because I get to see teachers facilitate the learning process with kids. I also love playing tennis, am an amateur magician (it's a little hobby of mine), and have dreams of one day owning a farm in rural Maine and living a semi-self-sufficient life.