Matthew Daniel

Background

About Matthew Daniel

In June of 2022, I accepted a position with K2United in the role of Content Quality Assurance. At K2U, I help shape workforce readiness training curriculum for both public and private sectors, ensure our products meet accessibility standards, and contribute to the overall quality of the company's development offerings. Here's how I got there: After graduating from the University of New Orleans, I worked in special education at the school where I student taught – Sci High. While assisting a student on the autism spectrum throughout the day, I also took on the role of SPED writing instructor. Together, the students and I produced a self-published collection of writing that exhibits their unique perspectives on life and the world. In August of 2015, I accepted the position of creative writing teacher at Riverdale High School. There, I assembled a curriculum which exposes students to the widest possible swath of genres, styles, and worldviews. My students were invited to participate each year in workshops put on by the Tennessee Williams Literary Festival and have been published most recently in collections such as the New Orleans Museum of Art's Poets for Art and the Austin International Poetry Festival's Di-vêrsé-city. In addition, students have participated in the taping of WWNO’s Peabody nominated podcast series Unprisoned and created their own pods based on a variety of student-decided topics. Those podcasts, as well as songs written and recorded during our songwriting unit, were published on my class website. Students were also invited onto WRBH’s radio show Figure of Speech to be interviewed and share poems written in class and during poetry club meetings. With this knowledge and experience under my belt, I returned to Sci High in 2018 in the role of Technical Writing teacher. There, I teamed with the English teacher to target specific writing skills juniors needed in their tool belt to succeed. After a year in that role, I added the title of Writing Interventionist, allowing me to branch out into other classrooms to support other writing-based initiatives. I also began teaching Journalism and revived the school newspaper in digital form. It was then that I transitioned to my current role.