Sharda Singh
Richmond Hill,NY
Summary
Passionate ELA and theatre teacher with a background in AP English, Film, and Multicultural Lit; recognized for integrating real-life, relevant applications into engaging and meaningful lesson plans aimed at fostering character, critical thinking, lifelong study skills, and academic success.
Overview
20
20
years of professional experience
Work History
ELA Teacher
Richmond Hill High School
Richmond Hill, New York
08.2006 - Current
- 💡Developed engaging lesson plans that connected students to the material and skills through implementing critical thinking and real-life personal, cultural, and kinesthetic meeting points. (Ex: Use of current events, gallery walks, “stand your ground or switch” debates, inclusion of art, social studies, music, and other crossroads in the ELA classroom, high-interest topics and trends such as the use of a social media template for character analysis, controversial opinion polls, and journals.)
- 🗣💡🦁Developed students' ability to engage in classroom discussions involving layered critical thinking and diverse perspectives through the use of scaffolding, self/peer/teacher evaluation and feedback, and discussion tracking. (Ex: placemat protocol, think-pair-share, silent debate, fishbowls, Socratic seminar, and spider-web mapped whole class discussion.)
- 🫶💡Implemented differentiated instruction methods to cater to varied student needs (Ex: Use of summaries and/or GIST templates to supplement texts for comprehension, project/extended writing outlines, choice boards, graphic organizers, sentence starters, visual aids, rubrics, checklists, portfolios, and student or teacher-made examples.)
- 📉Used school-wide assessment data to inform my instructional planning and focus. (Ex: Immediately focusing on author’s purpose, tone, and close reading throughout multiple lessons to strengthen/re-teach their understanding of these concepts after our students tested poorly in them.)
- ⭐Selected to teach AP English for several unforgettably fun and successful years.
- ⭐Rated “highly effective” in several past observations before the new rating system, and otherwise, consistently effective.
- ⭐Scored a 100 per cent Regents pass rate for two years in a row with my junior classes.
- 🎭Wrote organic, culturally representative and highly acclaimed scripts for my theatre classes and produced and directed them to perform it from 2006 to 2019 and from 2023 to present, with either 1 to 2 plays per year, some of which were also filmed as movies.
- ⭐🎭Awarded by the state assembly for my years of theatre work at the school and how it impacted the community.
- 🫶🎭Collaborated with colleagues to create interdisciplinary projects and activities. (Ex: In my theatre class, I worked closely with the music, art, and IT department/team to bring our productions to fruition, and in Success Mentoring, created material with other teachers to aid in students’ socio-emotional well-being.
- 🫶🦁Mentored new teachers by providing close guidance in lesson planning and classroom management, and was cooperating teacher to a student teacher for the Spring 2026 term, and was asked to serve again by the Queens College supervising professor.
- 🫶Distinguished by supervising staff for providing warm, active support for students struggling socio-emotionally and their parents.
- 🫶Collaborated with other subject and grade-level teachers to build educational frameworks, templates, and strategies for student advancement, and with other ELA teachers to create and organize curriculum.
- 🦁💡Led professional development in my school on using acting in other subject areas, finding/building central idea, and facilitating discussion.
- 🫶💡Volunteered to participate in professional ENL CTLE hour workshops to learn ENL strategies to better inform my ELA instruction.
- 🎭Brought students to theatre workshops in costume and props-making, voice, the backstage backstage, as well as to memorable on and off Broadway productions from 1 to 2 times per year.
- 🫶🦁Known among students and staff for building a strong classroom community of warmth, enjoyment, and respect, where I aim for everyone to feel like family and have a stake as a leader.
- 🫶Attended/chaperoned multiple school events, often by student request.
Education
Master of Arts - Literature
Queens Colege/ CUNY
Flushing, NY05-2003
Skills
- Google Classroom
- AI technology
- Kinvo outreach and anecdotal system
- Canva
- Scaffolding and differentiating
- Teaching theatre, AP English, lit to film, multicultural lit, and Regents (test) prep
- HMH instruction
- Data-informed lesson planning and curriculum development
- Building discussion and critical thinking
- Facilitating self and peer evaluation
- Project-based learning
- Development and implementation of organizational and study skills
- Literary analysis and annotation
- Hands-on learning
- Collaborating with interdisciplinary teachers
- Building classroom leadership and teamwork
- Mentoring new teachers
- Professional development facilitation
- Student progress assessment
- Cultural and socio-emotional responsiveness
Timeline
ELA Teacher
Richmond Hill High School
08.2006 - Current
Master of Arts - Literature
Queens Colege/ CUNY