Education
Grammaropolis
Hailed as the Schoolhouse Rock for the 21st century, Grammaropolis is a world where the parts of speech and punctuation marks are personified based on the roles they play in the sentence. The noun knows the sentence depends on him. The adjective can't stop making everything more colorful. The adverb is a little much. Chief Comma keeps the peace. Officer Period does not mess around.
"The linguistic insights are pure gold."
WIRED
"Learning grammar has never been so much fun."
School Library Journal
"My favorite app for English."
Lance Ulanoff, LIVE with Kelly and Ryan
Available for students in grades K–8 across animated music videos, full-length albums (Grammaropolis and Punctuate This!), animated shorts, children's picture books, skill-building workbooks, a subscription website, and iOS and Android apps.
The Classroom
The town had to come from somewhere. Six years teaching 7th grade Writing and Grammar at Pinewood School in Los Altos Hills, California. I also taught Film Studies there — I had a film critic for a mother, so it was probably inevitable — and upper-level Spanish. Eight hours a day, performing for an audience that didn't buy tickets.
After my MFA, I served as Visiting Writer in Residence at Rice University, teaching Introduction to Creative Writing and Introduction to Fiction.
Consulting
Same work. Different room.
The most direct application outside a classroom: a curriculum and educational video series for BHP Billiton, in partnership with Deutser, designed to bring 70,000 employees and contractors up to speed on a new system. The challenge was identical to what it always is — take something complex, find the right words, make it land for a specific audience.