School of Education, 3206 University Avenue, Des Moines, Iowa 50311

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing this letter in recommendation of Ms. Lisa Battistone, an applicant for a
teaching position in your school district.
I first met Ms. Battistone when she became my advisee as a Secondary Education major at
Drake University. Since that time, I have come to respect her abilities, both as a student
and as a future teacher.
Lisa is an intelligent woman who possesses many of the characteristics of a natural born
teacher. She is creative, flexible, open-minded, and able to adapt to the emergent
conditions of the classroom as they are presented. These attributes allowed her to
succeed as a pre-service teacher at Drake, and I have no doubt that they will allow her to
excel as a teacher in your district. It is her passion for literature and writingand her
ability to support students with special needs; however, that separates Lisa from her peers.
As a student in my instructional methods course, Lisa was asked to develop a series of
instructional units using the Understanding By Design (UbD) framework. This approach
to curriculum making emphasizes standards-based instruction and higher-order thinking
in an effort to provide students with purposeful and engaging learning experiences. Lisa
embraced the UbD framework and designed several units of instruction focused on the
craft of writing. In addition to employing flexible grouping and tiered instruction as
differentiated instructional strategies, Lisa utilized performance-based assessment, so that
her students could apply their understanding of key concepts (e.g., characterization,
imagery, etc.) in authentic ways. Her semester-length curriculum plan was, by far, one of
the best that I received, with respect to its level of rigor and integration of authentic
learning and assessment.
Please accept my highest recommendation of Ms. Lisa Battistone. She will make a fine
addition to your faculty. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me by email
at todd.hodgkinson@drake.edu or by phone 515-271-4565.
Sincerely,

Mr. Todd Hodgkinson

Assistant Professor of Secondary Education
Drake University