Teachers are the Difference: Marcus Miller

Marcus Miller
Upper School English Teacher

Upper School English teacher Marcus Miller’s primary objective for his students is for them to learn and value evidence-based reasoning and self-advocacy.

“It’s important for my students to be able to not only provide an answer to a question they’re asked but explain how they arrived at it. I’m less interested in whether they’ve given the correct answer, but more in their reasoning and evidence for the answer. Especially in an English class, where there’s not always a set correct answer when you’re talking about a passage in a novel, memoir, or short story. Because there’s room for interpretation, students adapt their logic based on evidence they collect over time,” Miller said.

As students learn how to create strong evidence-based arguments, they also grow more confident in self-advocating.

“Self-advocating is a crucial life skill for students to have, as a foundation to stand on during the rest of their life. Frequently in everyday conversation, they’re going to have to persuade someone of their position. It can be something as simple as where to eat for lunch or more serious as holding someone accountable for not fulfilling a promise,” Miller said.

Students study the memoir “Educated” by Tara Westover and read about her challenges to find education, overcome accompanying financial struggles, and grow into becoming a strong advocate for herself.

“In one section of her memoir, Westover has a terrible tooth pain and needs $1,500 to take care of it, but she has rent, food, and other necessities she needs to pay for. She’s unable to focus on grades because of the incredible pain, and they begin to fall. A bishop who knows her situation offers several different options to help and helps Westover apply for a grant. After receiving it, she marvels about how liberating it was to be able to take care of the pain, have food on the table, and money in her bank account,” Miller said.

To better understand how money affects families differently, students are assigned groups, each with a different fictional family set-up.

“They might have two parents, they might have multiple children, they could be living in the Midwest where there’s hardly any public transportation. Regardless of the circumstances, they are tasked with creating a budget and doing their best to make ends meet each month. Students will be on track with their budget when suddenly a ‘life event’ occurs, for example, maybe they need new brakes on their car. Depending on their financial situation, this completely changes their stress levels, their ability to buy food, and so much more. It’s a project relevant to the text while also a good life lesson in budgeting, and understanding how the same series of events has completely different consequences for different people,” Miller said.

Similar to Westover, Miller prioritizes self-advocacy because he wants students to feel proud of their role in their education.

“It’s more than their grades, it’s their learning process. It’s asking questions, crafting arguments, and finding solutions they hadn’t previously considered. It’s a foundation to build the rest of their life on, and I want them to feel confident in their ownership of it,” Miller said.