Melissa Johnson has been with the Jane Schaffer Academic Writing Program® since 2023 when she first began as district trainer for Ennis ISD where she serves as the secondary English and social studies instructional strategist. Mrs. Johnson taught high school English for sixteen years. Prior to teaching, she was a newspaper reporter in Sherman, Texas. Her husband, Wyatt, is also an educator, and they have two children, Paige and Luke. In her free time, Mrs. Johnson enjoys being outdoors with her friends and family. 

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Favorite Quote: 

“What you do is a reflection of you; what they do is a reflection of them."

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My Favorite Lesson:

My favorite lesson comes from when I taught AP English language and Composition. The students use resources from previous AP test synthesis prompts to gather evidence and develop commentary to support both a pro and con stance. On the day of the debate, a coin is flipped to determine which stance they will argue. Students love the assignment because they really get to dig into research over some pretty interesting topics, and they they get to show how they can effectively use the sources to prove their side.

My JSWP “Aha” Moment:

With every training I participate in, I learn something new. One of my most recent moments was in a training in which I was told not to use sentences in my commentary graphic organizer. I tend to want to write in complete sentences, but I had to work to only write one to two words per idea. Once we moved on to the revised topic sentence, commentary sentence, and concluding sentence, I realized how easily I was able to “pick and stitch” many words from my commentary planning to create deeper sentences.