Conjectures, conjunctions, blah, blah, blah… from winding lectures to mind-numbing essays, for many, ELA is not exactly the freshest breath of air. So at NAHS, it’s a sort of universal sentiment that a subject as taxing as English can 100% be elevated by having a good teacher or two. And among some of our most beloved ELA names, North Atlanta is proud to welcome Erin Turner, the newest addition to the AP Language & Literature roster.
The 2024-25 sentence marks Turner’s twenty-fifth year in education. After graduating from Armstrong State University with a Master of Education & B.A. in English, Turner attended GSU, becoming an Education Specialist. From there, Turner’s work was based in Greater Savannah as an instructional lead teacher at Richmond Hill High School, where she had a twenty-three-year spanning career. Turner officially made the metro jump to inner Atlanta this semester, and described the transition to NAHS as being pretty overwhelming. “There are a lot of procedures, policies, programs, and platforms,” she said, “keeping track of everything has definitely proven to be a challenge.”
Whether or not students want to admit it, sentence structure, text analysis, and vocabulary are all integral parts of written communication, and they should be getting the fundamentals down pat while they’re still in school. As she has begun to teach and instill new writing techniques and strategies, she has found herself having to review the basics. “Anybody who tells you that ELA is an easy subject to teach, it’s not,” said Turner. “Essays are especially bad, there are way too many students and way too many words to comb through within a certain amount of time.”
As an AP Language & Literature teacher, Turner’s workload reflects the difficulty of her course, providing a unique strain on her as the newest member of NAHS. While some may turn their nose up at the notion of spending hours a day reading paper after paper, Turner believes that the labor-intensive aspect of ELA doesn’t detract from its value. In her eyes, there’s worth in taking the time to properly teach students who need support at such a critical juncture. “The students are great, that’s one of the few constants of teaching,” Turner said. “Even after changing schools, the fact remains that I still need to teach, and that’s what I plan on doing at North Atlanta.”
Despite all of the hurdles, Turner’s conviction to tackle the 2024-25 year strong will hopefully be matched by equal enthusiasm from her AP Lang cohort as we officially welcome her (and her essay-full hands) to the Warrior family!
