Her career has spanned 20 years as first a student teacher at San Diego State University in California, teaching 2nd grade. Upon returning to her hometown of Gulf Breeze, Florida,
Dr. Densmore-James began her career as a middle school English teacher, traveling around the United States to such places as Northern Virginia, North and South Florida, South Texas, New Orleans, San Diego, and Toronto, Canada, and was greatly influenced by the best educators around the U.S. The diverse groups of students with whom she worked were the driving force in her interest in working with struggling adolescent readers. This led her to obtain a Masters in Reading at the University of West Florida and continue on to become a Reading Specialist at her alma mater, Gulf Breeze High School. Although teaching K-12 is a passion, her time as an instructor at the University of West Florida inspired her obtain her PhD. from Florida State University in the two areas she loves most: Language Arts and reading. It is her hope to inspire teachers to become not only artists but also researchers in the area of literacy in order to give voices to those students forgotten by an educational system that may not meet the needs or understand ALL students.