Awards and Accolades

Date: November 2008

Read about the special awards won and notable books written by writing project teachers.

California

Area 3 Writing Project

Susan Abbott, 1987 fellow, received the 2008 Outstanding Teacher of America Award from the Carlston Family Foundation. The award honors teachers for their persistence and dedication to making the educational process work for their students, so they can move forward to plan and reach goals they hadn't dreamed of before. Abbott is an English teacher at Sheldon High School in Sacramento.

Bay Area Writing Project

Cathlin Goulding, 2005 fellow, is a finalist for the Teachers and Writers Collaborative Bechtel Prize for her essay "When Twilight Falls: How Documentary Poetry Responds to Social Injustice." The Bechtel Prize is awarded in recognition of an exemplary article or essay related to creative writing education, literary studies, and/or the profession of writing. Goulding teaches English and poetry at Newark Memorial High School in Newark.

Inland Area Writing Project

Kristy Orona-Ramirez, 2008 fellow, was named AmeriCorp's Teacher of the Year 2008. Orona-Ramirez published a children's book, titled Kiki's Journey (Children's Book Press, 2006). Orona-Ramirez also published a collection of poetry, titled Reclaimation Road (Coyotesse Books, 2007), and uses the special spelling "Reclaimation" to emphasize that she is reclaiming her identity as a Native American woman. The poems, she says, represent "a reclaiming of one's voice, heart, soul, and spirit."

National Writing Project

Richard Sterling, executive director of NWP from 1994 through 2007 and founding director of the New York City Writing Project, accepted a Lifetime Achievement Award from California's Curriculum Study Commission at the opening ceremonies of the 58th Annual Asilomar Language Arts Conference, titled "Teachers at the Center." In her remarks, Vivian Boyd, chair of the commission, noted that under Sterling's stewardship the NWP had reached what had been a distant dream for Jim Gray and the founding leaders of the writing project: putting a site within reach of every teacher in America.

Delaware

Delaware Writing Project

Kathleen Gilbert, 2004 fellow, was named Brandywine School District Teacher of the Year. Gilbert teaches English at Springer Middle School in Wilmington.

Raymond Theilacker, 2002 fellow, participated for the fourth year in a seminar of the Yale National Initiative. In collaboration with Yale University William Lampson Professor of English Paul H. Fry, Theilacker wrote a curriculum unit, "The Language of Power in Shakespeare." Theilacker also leads a group of Yale fellows who are in the process of exploring, with University of Delaware and four New Castle County school districts, a teachers institute in Delaware based on Yale's successful model of content-oriented professional development. Theilacker teaches at Howard High School of Technology in Wilmington.

Gretchen Wolfe, 2000 fellow, was named Christina School District Teacher of the Year. Wolfe teaches at Brader Elementary School in Newark.

Illinois

Chicago Area Writing Project

Marilyn J. Hollman, former co-director, gave the featured presentation, "On the Intimate Edge: Thoughts on William Maxwell," at the 100th birthday celebration for writer and editor William Maxwell. The celebration took place on August 16, 2008, Maxwell's birthday, in Lincoln, IL, where he grew up and which is the setting and inspiration for so much of his work. Maxwell won a National Book Award and was fiction editor for The New Yorker for forty years.

Indiana

Appleseed Writing Project

Glenda Moss, director and 2002 fellow, received the Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne (IPFW) 2007 Vice Chancellor's Special Merit Award for her writing project work. Moss published a book titled Crossing Boundaries and Building Learning Communities (Hampton Press, 2008), which proposes connecting two research paradigms, critical ethnography and narrative inquiry, as tools for translating critical pedagogy into teacher education and K–12 practice. Moss was also published in three peer-reviewed journals: "Scholar-practitioners building learning communities in practice: Engaging curriculum, engaging learning," co-authored with Laura Huffman, in ScholarlyPartnershipsEdu; a book review on Learning in Places: The Informal Education Reader (Peter Lang, 2006), edited by Zvi Bekerman et al., in Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education: An International Journal; and "Diversity study circles in teacher education practice: An experiential learning project" in Teaching and Teacher Education 24: 216–224. Moss is an associate professor in the School of Education at Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne.

Iowa

Iowa Writing Project

Anne Weir, co-director and 1980 fellow, received the Iowa Council of Teachers of English 2008 Distinguished Service Award for exemplary teaching and service to the profession. Weir teaches English at Waco High School in the Waco Community School District.

Louisiana

National Writing Project of Acadiana

Ann B. Dobie, director emerita and 1989 fellow, published a collection of stories titled Fifty-Eight Days in the Cajundome Shelter (Pelican, 2008). Dobie also published the second edition of Theory into Practice: An Introduction to Literary Criticism (Wadsworth / Cengage Learning, 2008), which provides extensive step-by-step guidance for writing literary analyses from each of the critical perspectives. Dobie is state coordinator of the Louisiana Writing Projects Network.

Maryland

Maryland Writing Project

Evan Balkan, 1999 fellow, published Shipwrecked!: Deadly Adventures and Disasters at Sea, a collection of researched true adventures that detail 14 extraordinary maritime disasters spanning the 17th through 20th centuries (Menasha Ridge, 2008). Balkan teaches writing and literature at the Community College of Baltimore County.

Massachusetts

Western Massachusetts Writing Project

Kevin Hodgson, 2003 fellow, publishes a comic strip, "Boolean Squared," about kids, teaching, and technology on The Republican (Springfield) website. The main character, Boolean, loves computers with a passion, but he rarely uses them in the way that his teacher, Mr. Teach, would like. Hodgson teaches writing at the William E. Norris Elementary School in Southampton.

Charles Moran, founding site director, received the Pat Hunter Award from the Western Massachusetts Writing Project for his substantial contributions to the organization. Moran is professor emeritus of English at the University of Massachusetts.

Michigan

Red Cedar Writing Project

Troy Hicks, co-director and 2003 fellow, received the Charles Carpenter Fries Award. The award honors teachers who have served their local communities, provided significant service at state and/or national levels, and, in general, demonstrated outstanding leadership in the field of education. Hicks is assistant professor of English language and literature at Central Michigan University.

Montana

Montana Writing Project

Heather Bruce, director, received a $10,000 Teacher Development Grant from the McCarthey Dressman Education Foundation, which will fund the project's initiative to help implement Indian Education for All in Montana's schools. Bruce will work with a group of teachers to create a curriculum that helps improve students' reading, writing, and research skills while teaching about American Indians. Bruce is professor of English at the University of Montana.

New Jersey

National Writing Project at Rutgers University

The Rutgers University Graduate School of Education Non-Degree Teaching of Writing Program, developed in collaboration with the National Writing Project at Rutgers University, was honored as University Continuing Education Association (UCEA) Mid-Atlantic Region's most effective and innovative credit program developed in 2007. The program is designed to enable teachers to utilize research and theory to foster a vision of literacy learning as an active social process in which students become engaged writers.

Oklahoma

Oklahoma State University Writing Project

Janet Anderson, 2006 fellow, and Anne M. Ortiz, 1992 fellow, received a $5,000 Learning and Leadership Grant from the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation to conduct action research by studying the literacy of boys. Their study will include nonfiction texts, graphic novels, and cartooning. Both Anderson and Ortiz teach at Skyline Elementary School in Stillwater.

Heather Sparks, 1995 fellow, was named Oklahoma Teacher of the Year. Sparks teaches algebra and pre-algebra at Taft Middle School in Oklahoma City.

Pennsylvania

Southcentral Pennsylvania Writing Project

Jo-Anne Kerr, director and 1998 fellow, published "Community, Collegiality, Collaboration: Creating and Sustaining Productive Relationships with Cooperating Teachers," coauthored with Dr. Linda Norris, in the fall 2008 issue of Field Experience Journal. Kerr is an assistant professor of English at Indiana University of Pennsylvania.

U.S. Virgin Islands

Virgin Islands Writing Project

Valerie Combie, director and 2005 fellow, published a personal essay, "Allison," and a poem, "Thoughts on Frederiksted," in The Caribbean Writer 22, an international literary anthology. Combie is an assistant professor of English at the University of the Virgin Islands.

Washington

Puget Sound Writing Project

Linda Clifton, former director and 1981 fellow, published a poem, "Legend of the Four Mothers," and a short fiction piece, "The Four Mothers and the Rabbi's Wife," in Drash: Northwest Mosaic. Clifton serves as final editor for the One Hundred Words or Fewer contest and is a co-editor on the editorial panel for an anthology of poems by Jewish women poets of the U.S. west coast states.