Dear parents and guardians,

I hope everyone is excited to start another great school year at Sonoran Foothills, home of the Bobcats! I, Mr. Wood, will be your child’s language arts and public speaking teacher over the next 9 months. I like writing a letter at the beginning of each year to introduce myself and offer a general overview of what we will be covering this year. 

First off, I grew up in the Central and Northern Phoenix areas and have remained an Arizona resident for all 32 years of my life. Both of my parents were award-winning teachers throughout their careers, so education was something that played a large role in my life from an early age. I have a younger brother, Jack, who works in sales out of Scottsdale, and I also have two twin sisters, Erin and Brooke, who work in therapy and education, respectively, out of Tempe. I graduated from Horizon High School in Scottsdale way back in 2008 and was fortunate enough to play basketball over my 4 years there. During the course of my senior year, I decided that I wanted to pursue my passion in education, thus I decided to major in Elementary Education at the University of Arizona. Unfortunately, Coach Miller (at the time) didn’t want my 5’9, nonathletic self on the basketball team, so I found a second passion in life as a coach. I have had an amazing time coaching girls and boys at the middle and high school levels over the past 13 years, and although bittersweet, I will be taking at least this year away from the court to spend more time with the family. I graduated from U of A in May of 2012, wrapped up my student teaching on the east side of Tucson and am now coming into my 11th full year as an educator. The unique teaching methods I’ve learned, wonderful relationships I’ve made and desire to keep learning, even at this stage of my career, are all things I fully incorporate into my classes here at SF. 

My wife, Courtney, and I have been married for almost 8 year, and we welcomed our first little one, our daughter, Chandler, into the world in May of 2020. She's already showing plenty of Momma's wonderful sass and even more of Daddy's  stunning good looks. She is walking and talking like crazy, which keeps us and our 11 year old black lab, Callahan, on our toes from sun-up to sun-down, but we are enjoying every minute of it (mostly). I am a die-hard U of A and Arizona sports fan, yet a large portion of my family lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, so I also support my Giants, Warrior and 49ers. When I am not watching sports, you can catch us on the beach in California and South Carolina, fly-fishing on the Sun River in Montana and hopping on the golf course as often as possible.

In terms of this school year, we have a fun and exciting curriculum planned in language arts, advanced language arts, and our exploratory courses. While following our ever-changing state standards, students will continue to hone their skills in the areas of reading, writing, speaking, analyzing, comprehension, fluency and listening. We will read from a variety of texts and novels, write many of our own unique pieces, create some innovative projects and get numerous opportunities to present our work to classmates. Everything taught in this class will develop students’ ELA skills and prepare them for high school, college and a bright future out in the real world. Students will see language arts in a whole new light this year and try some things they may not have had an opportunity to in the past. It is our hope that students walk into each class with an open mind. I like to say that there is a “method to our madness,” and the madness has seemed to pay off, for our 8^th grade team's standardized test scores have been at or near the top in the district over recent years. 

Materials needed for both of these classes are on our school website. For my class, specifically, students will need pencils, pens, markers/colored pencils, at least 2 notebooks and glue.

I hope to get the opportunity to meet you all over the course of this year. If you have any questions or concerns, I am very flexible and willing to do whatever I can to clarify them. My goal is to have every single student excel in the classroom. If students work hard, turn assignments in on time, participate in class and have a good attitude, there is no reason an A grade isn’t possible.

Thank you and Go Cats!

• Mr. Wood
• Email: max.wood@dvusd.org
• Class Phone: (623) 445-8468
• Parents, feel free to reach out to me directly if you would like my cell number.