Hello everyone! My name is Hannah Townzen. I grew up here in Edwardsville and decided to pursue my college career here at SIUE as well. I am a junior pursuing a bachelors in Psychology and a double minor in Criminal Justice and English. I am a proud member of greek life here on campus and am VERY involved on campus, as it brings so much joy into my life. As far as work goes, I serve tables at Texas Roadhouse and am a Student Teaching Assistant at the SIUE Early Childhood Center! I am also very blessed to have such amazing friends and loved ones in my life. When I am not working, you can usually find me with them or spending time with my boyfriend of nearly five years, Taylor.
So as you can assume, I’m a pretty boring person because all I do is work. I have no exciting plans for this summer, but I’m hoping to fit in some trips to the Zoo or to Six Flags every now and again.
As far as reading goes, I don’t have as much time to read for pleasure anymore but when I can, I always find myself re-reading my favorite book: Wishing for Someday Soon, by Tiffany King. I have also really enjoyed the Hunger Games series, and have nearly completed Battle Royale. I have always found pleasure in my English courses because they motivate me to read new selections that usually I would never choose for myself. I have taken English 200 and 209 and enjoyed both very much.
ONLINE LEARNING REQUIRES A LOT OF TIME!!
I have taken in the course of my college career three online classes. Let me tell you, if you want to succeed and have a good grade, you need to check blackboard or in our case the WordPress website every day and keep up with all due dates! I have taken two anthropology courses and one meteorology course online, and all three have required my attention daily.
In this class, I would really love to push myself to read as much as possible this summer, because I know that extrinsic motivation helps me to learn a lot better. I have looked at our class schedule and I am very excited, because I have never read any of the selections, but have heard of many of them. I think that by taking this summer class, I will broaden my knowledge of YA literature as well as enjoy the time I will schedule to sit down, relax, and read.
I look forward to getting to know all of you through this course. As you can tell, I am here for a good time and really love expressing myself through humor. Thank you for attending my Ted Talk, lets have a great summer semester!!
-Hannah Townzen
SIUE Young Adult Literature 
Nice to meet you, Hannah! Psychology major—I bet that is fascinating. It’s probably a pretty useful major when analyzing literature:)
Hannah, this week my daughter Nora was just talking about her awesome teacher Hannah, and I didn’t even know you were my student yet! Sounds like you have a lot of experience with online classes. I’d suggest definitely checking in three times a week: once early in the week to read and comment on my primary post, once late week to read and comment on the student posts, and once toward the end of the week to add a second round of comments. If you do those three check-ins, you’ll do fine!