This week is teacher appreciation week, and what better way to celebrate than to honor one of Taft’s most cherished teachers, Ms. Bullis, the AP English Language (AP Lang) and Creative Writing teacher. Ms. Bullis is fairly new to Taft, and has been teaching for eight years. Despite this, she is dedicated to helping her students grow both academically and as people, and her class resembles that.

While the college-level course is challenging, AP Lang is one of the most recommended by her previous students not only for the academic material, but to experience having Ms. Bullis as a teacher. She creates a safe environment for everyone, while pushing her students to do the best they can. Having this type of environment in school is what drove Ms. Bullis to become a teacher when she was in high school herself. She had worked at a summer camp as a counselor, and got to work alongside the teachers who had supported her through school.

After teaching at a private school in Florida, Ms. Bullis began her teaching career at Taft, and absolutely loves it. She loves incorporating the real world into her curriculum, and Taft gives her the opportunity to do that. Here, Ms. Bullis has the flexibility to teach the way she deems best, and create a fun atmosphere in the classroom that makes her students want to learn.

While most of her periods are for AP Lang, her last period of the day is creative writing. This class lets students express themselves in many different ways, and Ms. Bullis loves seeing her students flourish and experiment with different writing techniques.

As the year is coming to an end, Ms. Bullis offers advice to prospective students who want to sign up for AP Lang (and creative writing): “It’s hard. It is rigorous, but it is fulfilling, and it really will prepare you for any English class you have after. I’ve had many students come back and say ‘While it was hard, it was rewarding,’ and their English classes after that have been much easier to them from that. Just be ready to work, to put your best effort in, and ask questions…And with creative writing, just have a love for writing, exploring new stories, new poetry, yourself through that writing, and you’ll be good.”