Olivia Beltran

4.04.23
Rochester High School
LA9

To whomever it may concern,

Ms. Hawkes is an excellent Language Arts teacher; fun and engaging, fair and firm, involved
and considerate, the whole shabang!

A few activities she had us students do-- including Jeopardy, rearranging card shuffles, and a
variety of engaging online trivia games-- nurtured our knowledge of the material we covered, in
a fun and interactive way. I find it especially helpful when those kinds of fast-paced review
games are utilized in class, particularly Jeopardy and Kahoot or Gimkit as a personal
preference, because it aids in thinking quickly on one’s feet, also integrating review about the
subject.

As well as interesting lessons and review, her similar generational lingo and awareness of
popular jokes and slang engages the students in a way that other teachers might not be able to
provide. Engaging the students is very important when trying to motivate them to learn;
otherwise, students retain the information long enough to pass the exam, and then forget the
material as soon as they don’t need it anymore. With engaging lessons and teachers, students
remember and retain this information much longer due to the fact that it was taught in an
engaging environment.

The interactive games, her fair-but-firm and fun (the three “f’s”) personality, and her engaging
teaching style has been beneficial to our overall education in the language arts department.

All in all, Ms. Hawkes is a wonderful teacher and will serve as an excellent staff member and
educator for students anywhere.