terrill soules
I created this mega-resume in order to become an official teacher, which I finally am. It’s nice to have all the dates recorded and in one place, but this is far more information than anyone would need or want. I haven’t touched this for two years.
During which time I learned my destiny: translate the Divine Comedy. I would have appreciated earlier notice. Qualifications, such as they are: I’m a poet, I speak a Romance language, I was a Classics major, I grew up to the sonorities of the King James Bible. And I find Dante inexhaustibly wonderful.
Today (winter 2004), I teach English as a Second or Other Language (ESOL) at North Atlanta High School, all grades, eleven nationalities. I feel needed and that I’m doing some good. Being a known techie guy, I’ve been put in charge of North Atlanta’s pilot online-learning initiative, which should involve no more than sitting in a room where students attend the physics and world literature classes taking place on their computers.
I got my feet (soaking) wet teaching Language Arts, as a full-time substitute, to the sixth grade at Turner Middle School, January to May 2001. Then in the fall of 2001 I taught one class, Latin, at North Atlanta High School, adding a full-time ESOL load in January. I am at last provisionally certified, and, after five years, again have benefits. I have been teaching as a real teacher (as in the real boy Pinocchio longed to become), then, since August 11, 2003.
I was asked to read some of my poems at a High Museum Friday Jazz night about a year ago. One of the poems had a line about walking past photographs in a gallery “as though past Rothkos,” and I read not fifty feet from real Rothkos, so that was fun.
To go straight to my [official] poetic history, which appears some pages ahead, search for the phrase “chronology: publication.”
Last April (2003), I had the great privilege of being one of the readers at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, the annual Maundy Thursday reading of the Inferno, reading my own translation of the second half the Canto 30 (translated for the occasion—otherwise I have translated only the first five cantos of Inferno, or, as I have it, the first five Songs of Hell.
I had another privilege: to read part of the Paolo and Francesca episode, from my translation, at the Friends of Emory Library Twelfth Night Gala, which traditionally includes the reading of poems, on January 10. The excerpt was well received. At least my delivery of it was.
I’m deeply in love with my wife, Foster.
TEACH
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I have two callings: poetry and teaching. It would follow that to teach creative writing would be my perfect occupation. This document shows three things: how far I have strayed from this ideal; how the need to teach keeps reasserting itself; and, I hope, how determined to teach I am now.
In past resumes I see a teacher trying to get out. Twenty-twenty hindsight reveals each Objective as almost a bumper sticker that tells the world: I’d Rather Be Teaching. I believe the Objectives excerpted here, spanning more than a decade, bear this out. Couldn’t any one of them have come straight from the resume of a teacher ready to make a change—someone already within the profession?
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“My work [whether in sales, marketing, journalism, freelance writing, or teaching software] has had a single set of objectives: make contact, instruct, convince.” (2000)
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“Make the complex accessible. Make the familiar fresh.” (1994)
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“. . . my need to share interesting information.” (1981)
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“. . . Exceptionally effective communication skills.” (1982)
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“An exceptional ability to communicate information with words,
whether written or delivered to an audience.” (1983)
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“. . . the conversion of unfamiliar information to knowledge that is used.” (1986)
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“A clarifier: someone trainees like, trust, and learn from.” (1988)
My Objective, then, out in the open at last, is Teach. No more marketing, no more sales. Teach writing, teach literature, teach word processing, teach the Web’s wealth of knowledge resources. Teach children, adolescents, or adults. But teach. In other, and fewer, words: Objective: Teach.
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chronology: work
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For Teaching Experience only, please see my
consolidated WORK CHRONOLOGY, Page 4.
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2001 August
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Entered Georgia State University, towards an M.A. in English (in 2003).
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2001 July
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WRITING
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Jones Design www.jonesdesign.com Atlanta, GA
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2001 February
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Contract Writer
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The three-word-theme I devised for a Fortune 500 company taught large potential investors how this company sees itself. The new Jones Design website, written by me, teaches you what Jones Design does and how Jones Design does it.
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2001 February
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WRITING
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WebTone www.webtonetech.com Atlanta, GA
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2000 October
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Contract Writer
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Press releases, company backgrounders, and five words that became a trademarked component of the company logo.
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2000 June
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WRITING
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Synesis www.synesiscorp.com Atlanta, GA
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2000 May
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Contract Writer
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Converted instructor-led training for corporate managers to WBT (Web-based Training).
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2000 April
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MARKETING
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VerticalOne www.yodlee.com Atlanta, GA
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1999 October
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Contract Writer
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Primarily marketing copy for this Internet startup (since acquired by Yodlee). I rewrote their online Help and planned, researched, and wrote the company brochure.
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[2000 February
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JOURNALISM
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OutSite Magazine London, Ontario]
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[2000 February
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Contract Writer,
Photographer
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Cover story on Atlanta home-improvement company. (A search for Atlanta freelance writers ]
led the Canadian agency commissioning the story to my website, www.tsoules.com.)
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1999 June
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WRITING
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iXL www.ixl.com Atlanta, GA
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1999 January
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Contract Writer
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Created interactive business-planning scenarios for entrepreneurs.
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1998 December
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Substitute
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Wesleyan School www.wesleyanschool.org Norcross
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1998 September
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TEACHING
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Math, 11th/12th-grade Spanish (I speak Portuguese); Geography, 5th grade; World History, 11th grade
I loved substituting. Learning from the fifth-grade geography teacher that the next day’s subject was Pangaea, the prehistoric landmass whose slowly drifting pieces became our continents, I had an idea. I divided a paper Pangaea into its continental components, and cut each one out and attached it to a two-foot dowel—a geography wand! When the time came—all other work completed—I drew the continents on the blackboard as they are today. Then the kids granted wands bunched (very much envied) at the board in an expectant cluster, their adjacent wand-ends together forming Pangaea. Then, very slowly sliding their continents to their outlined destinations, they chanted, “Millions of years. Millions of years.” I can still hear them. In a way, isn’t every classroom a kind of Pangaea, breaking up at the end of every year, the one class becoming separate journeys to as many adulthoods?
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chronology: work (continued)
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1998 December
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Substitute
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The Galloway School www.gallowayschool.org Atlanta
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1998 September
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TEACHING
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World History, 10th Grade; Biology, 10th Grade; Computer Lab, 11th Grade
A Galloway memory: During a public-speaking study period, it had come out I was a poet. I was pressed to recite an example. They liked what they heard, then urged some freestyling—make up something then and there. Now, I don’t do that. But that day I took the risk. At that point one boy said he wanted me to be his class’s Commencement speaker! I replied that I was not . . . luminous. And he replied, “Hey, it’s our choice.” And that is the odd anecdote of the sub who was asked to speak at Commencement.
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1998 June
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MARKETING
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Microsoft Corporation www.microsoft.com Atlanta, GA
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1997
1996
1995
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Field Marketing Specialist II
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Philanthropy. I became the District philanthropist, by far my most satisfying Microsoft work. I wrote successful grants, one that attracted the attention of both the United States government and Bill Gates. (Please see Honors, Awards, Recognition—June 1997.)
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1994
1993
1992
1991
1990
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Field Marketing Specialist I
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Marketing. Moving to Marketing marked my becoming a full-time employee. (Microsoft’s so-called part-time program nevertheless involved training trips to Seattle, National Sales Meetings in Toronto, New Orleans, San Diego, Hawaii, etc. etc.) Our small Marketing group was successful, with our manager being honored at the National Sales Meeting as Manager of the Year.
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1988
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Education
Area Sales Representative
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Higher-Education Sales. The Microsoft rep for higher-education institutions from Mississippi to South Carolina, including Georgia Tech and Georgia State.
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1987January
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Associate
Sales
Representative
TEACHING
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NOTE: During my part-time years with Microsoft, 1988 to 1993—I formed O’Clarity (see next company below), a software training company, and divided my time between being a Microsoft sales representative and a freelance
software trainer.
Microsoft (wanting to sell Word in quantify) loaned me to Apple (wanting to sell Macintoshes in quantity) as a Word trainer at Coca-Cola headquarters. As a result, Apple made a large sale. At the end of the two weeks of training, my students, Coca-Cola employees, presented me with a big card, which they all had signed. Their comments are, I believe, what any teacher would like to hear. The comments selected are unedited.
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Thanks for your help! Your classes were great.
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You were a great teacher. Enjoyed it much.
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Great class . . . I enjoyed learning!
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Thanks for all your help. It was a pleasure.
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Thanks for making it a fun experience!
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Wonderful learning experience.
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Thanks for all your wonderful instruction.
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Thanks to you, I’m a Mac Wiz (Ha Ha!) Thanks for your patience!
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Thanks for all the help. Now I feel like a pro.
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Your methods are great.
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Thanks. It was great. You were great.
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Thank you so much for all the “spice” you added to our class.
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Thanks for teaching all that great stuff. You were a big help to me.
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What great instructions! Enjoyed all the classes.
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I really enjoyed the training classes.
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Thanks for a wonderful class.
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Thanks for making a good change in my life!
Retail Sales. A (demanding) part-time position, part of a corporate strategy to greatly increase customer contact nationwide.
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1993 June
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Trainer
(Software: Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
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O’Clarity Atlanta, GA
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1992
1991
1990
1989
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TEACHING
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Formed one-man training company, O’Clarity, training primarily for Appletree (today the much larger New Horizons Computer Learning Center). I got a lot of teaching experience and helped make Appletree’s first years prosperous.
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Years as trainer: 5
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Average number of classes taught per week: 2
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Average size of class: 12 students [continued on next page]
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chronology: work (continued)
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1988 January
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TEACHING
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Duration of class: 6 hours
Five years; 350 classes; 3,500 students; 2,100 hours.
I believe I was a popular and effective teacher at Appletree, able to complete the day’s lesson plan while accommodating the invariable broad ability spectrum, from novice to proficient.
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1987 January
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SALES
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Microsoft Corporation (Please see 1998 June, on the previous page.)
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