LifeChanger of the Year Nominee Profile

Jennifer Wobser was nominated anonymously.

Mrs. Wobser loves her work with students and feels deeply gratified, which makes it easier for her to be a positive and encouraging facilitator in the classroom and with her colleagues. She models kindness, patience, and compassion daily.

Mrs. Wobser often starts the year with two important "getting to know" you writing assignments. The first is a "Who Am I" poem in which students guess who is who based on the details shared in each poem. They love the share-aloud of this poetry reading because students also include a baby picture with their poem, which adds to the fun of guessing who belongs with each poem. Additionally, students write a "This I Believe" personal narrative after they read/write/and discuss samples posted on NPR.

Mrs. Wobser values these writing assignments because they help her get to know a bit about each student's interests, values, life struggles, goals, loved ones, and meaningful attributes and experiences. These personal narratives can be quite an emotional share-aloud experience. Still, this final step is imperative in helping her and the students develop mutual respect and admiration for one another's life stories.

Mrs. Wobser regularly displays student work and projects and uses past and current student exemplars to model expectations for writing, literature, and speaking presentations. She deeply values taking the time to be fully present while teaching. She listens earnestly to what matters to her students. She provides choices whenever possible, whether that be regarding fiction and nonfiction texts they read, journal prompts to provoke thinking and meaningful discussion, or present thought-provoking agree/disagree statements that prompt critical thinking. Students must apply their readings and use textual evidence to support their positions on each statement that relates to relevant human nature issues. This may be through a more formal Socratic Seminar or informal group discussion.

Mrs. Wobser learns as much — if not more — from the students as she hopes they do from the curriculum. She provides specific, thoughtful, and thorough feedback on all of their work, which takes a lot of time in the evenings and over the weekend to do it proper justice. Mrs. Wobser also believes students ultimately know she cares about them and their well-being as individuals, which she thinks leads to fewer behavior problems. Mrs. Wobser feels like by the end of the year they've created a familial atmosphere together, and that effect deeply gratifies her.