WRIT 3500 Cover Letter Assignment

Dear City Year Denver hiring manager,

I am writing to express my interest in serving as an AmeriCorp member in the City Year program in Denver for the upcoming school year. I attend the University of Denver, where I have a 3.74 GPA, and I am graduating this June with a bachelor’s degree in English and minors in history and writing practices. I have past experience working as a teaching assistant for a Hunter College professor, whom I took classes with in high school, in the museum-based classes that she leads for middle-grade students on varied social studies topics. As such, I have prior knowledge of what it is like to work with students in a teaching environment.

I am hoping to use my degree to one day become an English teacher. I greatly believe in the power of literature and the written English language to help us better understand ourselves, and I hope to be able to use my teaching to give that power to needy and deserving students. Through serving as a tutor in Denver Public Schools, the City Year AmeriCorp program would give me the skills and knowledge that I desire to have before becoming a teacher, allowing me to first gain experience working in public schools in a non-teacher role and to take that experience to become the best teacher I could be.

I grew up in a diverse, mostly working class neighborhood in New York City. In my childhood, I attended public schools that were sometimes underfunded and overburdened. As such, I have an understanding of the complexities and challenges of urban education, that which City Year aims to tackle and make easier for both students and teachers in such an environment; I have no doubts that there were times in my childhood where I could have benefited from working with a City Year member.

A large part of my understanding of the role would be informed by this experience and my hope to make the lives of children today, who may be coming from a similar challenging environment in Denver, that much easier in the way that they are able to learn. Since coming to Denver for college, I have been able to gain an understanding of this new city. I see that there are many similar challenges here, and many similar students who can benefit from the City Year program. I hope to work with City Year to gain knowledge and skills for myself, but primarily to help students who deserve all the educational support that they need. Thank you for your consideration and your time.