Ever since she was a little girl, AP Language and Composition and SAT Prep teacher Christina Slick knew that teaching was the job for her. Slick transitioned to teaching AP Lang and SAT Prep this year from English I and English IV. Slick also sponsors two clubs, along with finishing her Master’s degree in English at Bowling Green University.

“She’s really laid back and down to earth,” junior Nicholas Hurley said. “She can relate to us and she understands the students because she has two kids.”

Slick takes on a unique teaching style by using teaching methods such as vocabulary videos, and memes of movie characters such as Kermit the Frog. The students are never just reading something, they are engaged in interactive activities such as mask designing and poster presentations. She started her teaching career in Arizona teaching middle school gifted kids, which require a different style of teaching to learn effectively.

“I try to make learning fun, which is the way I learned to teach, and sometimes kids think I’m being random,” Slick said. “I learned to teach through analogies and stories and intertextual connections. They don’t always quite get that, but it does become fun and then they start making the connection.”

Teaching AP Lang and sponsoring two clubs is already difficult, but Slick also teaches a new course, SAT prep. The goal of the class is to teach students strategies to be successful on the SAT, which can lead to getting acceptance into higher level colleges and graduate programs.

“She helped us prepare by working in the SAT books, and she had Power Points that laid out many examples of questions we would see on the test,” senior Harold Lewis said.

Slick attended the University of Arizona and got her degree in extended English, English was her major and minor. After graduating she taught in Arizona and later moved to Florida, where she taught at Greenwood Lakes Middle School. Then, she transferred here and taught English I and English IV, using the same visual learning strategies that she learned from teaching gifted kids.

“I’m not really different from the traditional teaching strategies; some teachers are more direct, but sometimes their students need that,” Slick said. “[I teach] a way of teaching that goes along with my personality.”

Slick sponsored four clubs last year: Anime club, E-Sports club, Creative Writing club and Korean Culture club. This year she is only sponsoring the Korean Culture club and Anime club, but hopes to restart Creative Writing club again. The Anime Club meets every Tuesday after school in her room, room 3-222, and the Korean club meets in the same place every other week.

“Sponsoring two clubs is difficult. I used to sponsor four clubs, but I couldn’t do that, being a teacher and be a full-time mom. Plus, I’m going to graduate school, and I was doing three classes at once last year and it got ridiculous,” Slick said.

Slick has the ability to make any class a unique and interesting learning environment. From making memes to watching movies, Slick will continue to inspire students to enjoy learning.