The Sparta Language Arts department is committed to offering our students rigorous and challenging curricula that enable them to fully develop critical and creative thinking and communication skills.  Through this, we will guide our students to evolve into articulate, global citizens who persevere through challenges and voice their ideas with maturity and sensibility.  Our combined efforts will provide them with the tools to transfer these acquired skills to various disciplines and real-world applications to better prepare them to contribute to and succeed in the 21st century.

Belief Statements:

• Foster an appreciation for reading and writing beyond their schooling
• Build confident, conscientious, independent readers and writers
• Expose students to multiple communication mediums to encourage digital citizenship
• Develop communication skills through the areas of reading, writing, speaking, listening, word study, and literary analysis
• Respond to the varying demands of audience, task, purpose, and discipline
• Guide students through the process from learning to read to reading to learn
• Teach students how to think, not what to think
• Challenge students to broaden their global perspectives and attitudes through open and respectful discourse, collaboration, and analysis
• Stress the value and skill of active listening
• Cultivate a sense of personal responsibility and accountability
• Promote shared responsibility for the education of our youth
• Aim to equip students both to read the world and write the future
• Inspire our students to surpass their own expectations
  
  

Mr. Rivers is proud to serve the Sparta School District as the supervisor of English/Language Arts for grades 6-12. Mr. Rivers began his teaching career as a high school ELA teacher in Robbinsville, New Jersey where he taught for two years before moving north to teach at Sparta High School. Since his arrival in 2014, he has presented with colleagues from Sparta and other NJ school leaders at national conventions for the National Council of Teachers of English. Mr. Rivers continues to engage with professional organizations and his incredible colleagues to pursue creative ways to meet the needs of our students. He is grateful to contribute to community groups in Sparta such as the Diversity Council and We Are the Dream. Mr. Rivers encourages all parents, students, and community members to read the kinds of books that, to borrow a phrase from Kurt Vonnegut, “make you brave and kind and healthy and happy.” 

Education:

• BA - English and Theatre Arts, Drew University (2011)
• MAT - Theatre Arts Education, Drew University (2012)
• MA - School Administration, Rowan University (2021)
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