About cathycanen.com, You, and Me
The purpose of this site is to support you and/or your site. Since you’re here, you are either interested in writing because you love words, or you’re a parent looking for smart alternative ways to teach your kids. I’m here to provide you with the support you need for the times when you are out of ideas, out of commission, or when you need to just hand things off to someone for a time.
Qualifications:
For Education topics:
I majored in elementary education, minored in English, I’m a certified sign language interpreter, and have taught kids with learning disabilities including deaf, blind, deafblind, Aspergers, and others. I’ve also created and coordinated language programs for deafblind and non-verbal autistic students. I’ve taught in traditional classrooms, specialty schools, and in our home school (K-12).
For 20 years I was the national representative for National Writing Institute (NWI), publishers of Writing Strands, the award-winning language arts program created by Dave Marks. I learned from Dave (who, incidentally, had dyslexia) ways to teach writing and literature to even the most stubborn, stuck, or broken-spirited child. His ways were non-traditional, though, and they challenged everything I had learned in teacher’s college about teaching reading and writing, but his logical, uncomplicated way of teaching children worked. It didn’t take me long to replace much of what I learned in college with what Dave taught me.
As I traveled across America, I had the honor of brainstorming with thousands of parents about the struggles they were having in their home schools and ways we could reverse those problems. My work here is based on what those parents shared with me.
While with NWI, I wrote and maintained the company newsletters, helped with textbook editing, tutored literature and writing courses from third grade through college. I also taught workshops on how to simplify learning so that kids could grasp material and retain it, not just in language arts, but across the curriculum. Click here to see some of the titles I have available for your support or for purchase.
Currently I am a curriculum manager (I do curriculum and lesson plans for you), and private tutor, teaching kids in both English and ESL situations in a variety of subjects.
For Bible Study Topics:
I’m a Christian woman who is deeply in love with God’s Word. I co-lead a community Bible study in our city and write all the material for it. For over 20 years I’ve edited and formatted these materials, but also Bible study materials and teaching guides for Christian publishers including LifeWay and Master Books.
My goal in writing faith-based materials is to cross the bridge between “their town,” that is, the Biblical settings, to “our town,” our daily life, so that people can see that while God’s Word is unchanging, it is always changing lives.
Professional Writing
I’ve written for publishing companies including the National Writing Institute, LifeWay books, and Master Books. Click here if you’d like to see some articles I have for sale in my portfolio, and contact me here if you’d like to have me write something specific for you.
We’re stronger together!
cathy*