Maleah: What classes do you teach?
Ms. Pritchard: I teach creative writing, I teach 3 sections of honors English language, and then I teach one section of honors English literature.
Maleah: What grades are those classes?
Ms. Pritchard: So the honors language and Honors Lit are both 9th grade and then creative writing is a mix; it brings you from 8th grade to 11th grade.
Maleah: What’s your favorite grade to teach?
Ms. Pritchard: Ohh. I would have to say ninth grade just because that’s the only grade I’ve really taught so far. My previous teaching experience was in college, so I taught undergraduates; but so far, the 9th graders have definitely made it more interesting– I’d say so.
Maleah: What made you want to be an English teacher or start teaching literature?
Ms. Pritchard: I don’t know. I always wanted to be a teacher of some sort. I went to NAU and I started out as a secondary education major, but then I switched to English a bit later just because I loved studying literature, and I’ve always loved being like an advisor in that role. So I think I just kind of wanted to teach in some capacity– promote my love for English and hope someone else falls in love with it too.
Maleah: What’s your favorite part of English to teach?
Ms. Pritchard: It’s hard. Um. Well, my favorite part of English personally is Gothic literature.
So Edgar Allen Poe was that type of literature, as well. Yeah, probably just teaching these types of books, like Gothic literature books like Frankenstein or American Gothic as well. So that’s what I’m passionate about. So if I ever get to teach those books, that’s my favorite part about teaching.
Maleah: I’m going to give you the hardest question to ask an English teacher, what is your favorite book?
Ms. Pritchard: I knew that was gonna come. That’s hard too, because it changes, I feel like. But right now it would have to be East of Eden by John Steinbeck is my favorite book. I read it like five years ago and it still is up there. I need to reread it though.
Maleah: What makes you like that book?
Ms. Pritchard: I just really loved the characters and the dialogue. They didn’t feel artificial in any way. It felt so real and it’s a big book. I don’t know if you’ve read it, but it’s around 600 to 700 pages. It was a fantastic read, I liked it, just like you get immersed in the story with these characters. You care about them and the imagery is so beautiful and sunny. So I need to reread it.
Maleah: So where did you go to college?
Ms. Pritchard: I got my undergraduate degree at Northern Arizona University and then I got my master’s degree at the University of Montana.
Maleah: So were those specifically just in English?
Ms. Pritchard: Yes, yeah, both were English. Montana was a bit more specific to English literature, but both were essentially in English, yeah.
Maleah: What was your favorite part of the college experience?
Ms. Pritchard: Definitely in undergrad. So at NAU, my favorite part was meeting all sorts of new people. The class sizes were a bit bigger, and I had a larger chance to meet people outside of my own nature as well, like in my general education classes. So it was probably one of my favorite parts. I also got to study abroad during my undergrad too, in Switzerland. That was probably also one of my favorite parts of that as well.
Maleah: What made you want to be a teacher?
Ms. Pritchard: Umm. It kind of started out, like I always knew I loved English and I wasn’t too sure what to do with that degree because everyone was like, “oh, you’d be a teacher and that’s all you can do” and I was like, “I’ll do something else”. But then I got a job as an international student advisor at NAU for a little bit, and I just loved working with the students. Even though it wasn’t essentially teaching, I was still acting as a kind of like advisor for them; teaching them what to do when they came to the US and how to enroll in classes for NAU, so I kind of just found somewhat of a passion of mine to help others, like through teaching essentially with using a degree for English in that sense.
Maleah: What would you do if you weren’t a teacher?
Ms. Pritchard: Probably, I could still do this, so maybe I will end up doing it anyway. Probably be an author in some capacity. I don’t know. If I could do the math (if I was better at math) I would be in the science field. I always wanted to study geology like volcanoes and volcanology. I always wanted to do that as a kid, but my brain just does not have the capacity for math like calculus, and precalculus was the last math test I ever took. So probably being a geologist or working at a National Park or something like that.
Maleah: Did you always think you were gonna be an English teacher?
Ms. Pritchard: Yes and no. I feel like I kind of had the inkling that I would always be one, just because English was my favorite subject and when I was pursuing English, I didn’t know that there were other options to do so I kind of figured my path would always go along the lines of being an English teacher. But along the way, I had different paths that I started to take, like being interested in the international field and international politics and different things like that. But I think I always had a feeling it would come back to being a teacher.
Maleah: So, if there were any other classes that you’d like to teach, what other classes besides the ones you already teach?
Ms. Pritchard: Like at BASIS, specifically?
Maleah: Yeah, what classes would you maybe want to bring to BASIS?
Ms. Pritchard: I would probably love to bring a capstone at some point. I have two ideas in mind, one would be to teach about gothic literature because I love it. like, go over the Gothic, delve into the American Gothic just like monster stories and things like that. I would also love to bring a German class because I know German isn’t a language that is taught here at BASIS, but it does have an AP exam on it so it could be utilized, so I’d love to teach either the German language as a course or maybe like German culture as it ties into gothic literature as well. So, probably one of those two.
Maleah: So if you want to teach German, do you speak German?
Ms. Pritchard: Yes, I say hesitantly. I started studying it in my junior year of high school, and I studied it throughout college. Like I studied abroad in German-speaking Switzerland for a year, and that was my sophomore year of college, which was only five years ago now and that was around people speaking German. I could speak it– I could comprehend it while listening to it; but now that I’m not surrounded by it anymore, I feel like I lost some but I can definitely still speak it to some extent.
Maleah: Any other languages that you’ve learned?
Ms. Pritchard: Mainly just German. I did take a year of French, but that’s kind of gone now. Like I can still read it a little bit. Switzerland has three national languages, German, French, and Italian, so I was surrounded by a bit of French, as well, it’s a little bit of that. A little bit of Dutch, just because I have a friend who is Belgian and she speaks Dutch, and it’s very close to German; so I can understand Dutch, but I can’t speak it very well, but those are the three languages that I kind of know.
Maleah: What is your favorite food?
Ms. Pritchard: Hard question. Ohh I’d have to say I don’t know if I have a specific food group or like food in it. I just thought of another one. I was gonna say Indian food. Also, Sri Lankan food is really, really good if you’ve ever had it. I have a friend from Sri Lanka and she made you food one time. It’s probably Sri-Lankan food.
Maleah: Do you have any pets?
Ms. Pritchard: I do. I have a dog. She’s kind of my parent’s dog, but I take care of her the most, I feel. [Her name’s] Lucy. She’s around 6 years old. We’re not too sure at this point. She was adopted or rescued from the shelter and she was like a Rottweiler mix. But even though she looks like a Rottweiler and she has a big head like a Rottweiler, she’s such a chicken. She’s very anxiety-filled, but she’s very nice, very cute.
Maleah: Besides dogs, do you like any other pets?
Ms. Pritchard: I do. I love cats, but unfortunately, I’m allergic to cats. So yeah, it’s a struggle. Like, my friends had a cat and I lived with them during my undergrad up in Flagstaff; I died inside a little bit because of allergies. But I still loved the cat and I’d love to have a cat someday if I ever didn’t have an allergy to them. Yeah, I love all kinds of pets, that’s for sure.
Maleah: OK. I believe that is all of my questions.
