Hello World!

My name is Phyllis Lehman, graduate of Brooklyn College 1984. The year not only sounds exotic due to George Orwell fame, but it is probably before many in this class were born.  I majored in political science and after working in a series of not-for-profit organizations went on to complete an MBA at Columbia Business School Class of 1988 whereupon I worked in corporate America.  I was married in 1991, gave birth to my first child in 1993 and exchanged all that paid work for stay-at-home mother.  As the children got older, I added part time work to the mix.  I currently am in charge of marketing for David York Home Healthcare Agency where there is a heavy emphasis on internet marketing.  Among other things, I manage and write content for the website's blog (which you can access here), the company newsletter, newspaper articles and the owner's blog at the Huffington Post as well as manage the company's social media pages.  

During my time at home raising my children, I saw that they were never taught writing the way that I was, which has left them with a skills gap.  I became very interested in filling that gap and, after trying my hand at various volunteer school committees, have thus enrolled in the Advanced Certificate in Teaching Writing Program at Stony Brook to advance my cause of encouraging and improving writing among our children.  

I am most interested the Writing Workshop as a method of teaching since that is an iteration of the way I was taught. I think that all children should know that they can write. When I have led workshops in the past, I said to the nervous little girls I was assigned to, "If you can speak, you can write." Along with the supportive, non-judgmental atmosphere we all tried to create, this seemed to give them much confidence and courage.  I am sure that learning more about digital rhetoric will only help me serve these children better.