Oral history interview with Mo Daley

Mo Daley, from Oak Forest, Illinois has been a classroom teacher for a couple decades and is currently a reading specialist in her middle school. She shares her sense of a rollercoaster spring in 2020 as she was abruptly switched to teaching from home, virtual teaching was a difficult and often frustrating and anxiety producing experience. She prides herself in her positive relationships with students, and teaching online found her missing students and worrying about their well being and their learning. The year shifted with much hard work to change virtual teaching from a scattershot of worksheets in the spring to solid embracing of reading and books. She speaks to the self-healing that writing poetry did for her as she relied on the Ethical ELA community to redirect her frustrations and anxiety. The positive feedback and flexibility have been key for Mo. ; The COVID-19 Teacher-Poets Writing to Bridge the Distance collection is a series of interviews documenting the teachers' poetry and writing experiences during the 2020 COVID-19 school closings and the topics and insights that emerged.