Sierra Clegg

I currently live in Colonie, NY with two lovely cats and maybe a few too many plants. I essentially graduated high school with the understanding that I was going to become a high school English teacher. However, my path deviated when I began to question my passions during my freshman year of college. Eventually, I stumbled upon linguistics and fell in love with the study of languages, leading me to major in the subject with a minor in English. During this time, despite loving the work I was doing and thoroughly enjoying learning and understanding new languages, I realized I still felt the pull to teaching. I decided in my Junior year that my original goal of becoming a teacher was truly my passion. I received both my bachelor’s in linguistics and my master’s in secondary education in English from SUNY Albany, graduating from the latter in December of 2018.

I’ve just recently finished a parental leave at Averill Park High School and will be eagerly starting up a full year parental leave at Ballston Spa High School this coming fall. I will be teaching both 9th and 11th graders.

My experience with HVWP has only just begun as I heard about this program through the Writing Project chapter near me- the Capital District Writing Project. I learned about the group through my aunt, a Spanish teacher at Guilderland High School. Once I entered my teaching program and could speak to experiences within the classroom, I began attending Saturday seminars and workshops whenever possible.

Outside my life as an English teacher, I read for pleasure! Recently, I’ve been working on Caitlin Doughty’s From Here to Eternity: Traveling the World to Find the Good Death, an interesting look at how our understanding and comfort with death has changed as the funeral industry encourages we distance ourselves from it. I believe my progress with that text might be stunted, however, as I recently found myself in Philadelphia’s Shakespeare & Co. bookstore and could not resist buying Italo Calvino’s The Complete Cosmicomics and Sinclair Lewis’ It Can’t Happen Here. As I’m sure many can relate, I don’t have enough shelf space!