Gail E. Hawisher is Professor of English and founding Director of the Center for Writing Studies at the University of Illinois. Her research has primarily focused on connections between literacy and technology studies, and she co-edits the international journal Computers and Composition. She and co-author, Cynthia Selfe, published the book-length Literate Lives in the Information Agewhich uses life history interviews to look at how ordinary people acquire digital literacies.  In her everyday work through the Center for Writing Studies and its programs, she likes to think that she works to change--with lots of help from good colleagues and writing studies' graduate students--the culture of teaching at her large research university. She currently serves on the National Advisory Panel to the National Commission on Writing for America's Families, Schools, and Colleges (2004)


Co-directors

Libbie Morley is Director of the Writers Workshop at the University of Illinois, the university’s writing center. Libbie’s research focuses on college students, academic writing, and writing centers. Her teaching experience includes writing courses for college students, graduate and undergraduate courses for pre-service teachers, and secondary English, in addition to less formal settings such as Upward Bound. Libbie has given presentations at regional and national conferences, in addition to mentoring new teachers. She is a Fellow of the Bluegrass Writing Project in Lexington, Kentucky, and participated in the National Writing Project Workshop on Professional Writing in 2000.

Sarah McCarthey is Professor of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois.   Her research focuses on the ways in which students construct their identities as readers and writers within home and classroom contexts. An article published in Reading Research Quarterly (2001) presents, for example, cases of fifth graders and the ways in which they negotiated their identities as literacy learners. Another research project extends the work on identity by investigating the ways in which second language learners construct their identities as writers in English and in their native language. She has published articles in Research in the Teaching of English (2004), Written Communication (2005) and an article with graduate students in Journal of Second Language Writing (2005). She is currently looking at the impact of NCLB on teachers' writing instruction in several states and working with teachers to understand the ways in which they integrate writing into their science instruction. She taught elementary school for eight years and has worked collaboratively with teachers since she began her graduate work at Stanford and Michigan State Universities. She is currently co-editor of Research in the Teaching of English with Mark Dressman and Paul Prior.

In-Service Coordinator

Scott Filkins works as the Professional Development and Content Specialist for the ReadWriteThink.org, National Council of Teachers of English. A former high school English teacher and department chair, Scott is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and member of NCTE, IATE, and IRA. 

 

 

Advisory Committee Members

Julie Erlinger  Teacher/mentor coordinator, Urbana High School, Urbana, IL

Lisa Storm Fink   Project Manager, Read/Write/Think, NCTE, Urbana, IL

Jill Flodstrom  Coordinator, K-5 English/Language Arts, Champaign, IL

Delores Lloyd  Teacher, Thomas Paine Elementary School , Urbana, IL

Charles Weinberg  Teacher, Centennial High School, Champaign, IL

 

Pictured
(from left to right)

Back row: Scott Filkins, Julie Erlinger, Charles Weinberg, Delores Lloyd

Front row: Sarah McCarthey, Jill Flodstrom, Gail Hawisher, Libbie Morley, Xun Zheng

 

2008 Summer Institute Members

Front row (from left to right): Sarah McCarthey, Gail Hawisher, Libbie Morley & Charlie Weinberg.

Second row: Hannah Lee, Steve Rayburn, Scott Filkins, Juliana Arazi & Pam Iverson.

Third row: Debbie White, Pat Brown, Teresa Hamilton, Tinamarie Neider & Delores Lloyd.

Back row: Patrick Berry, Kristen Hoch, Claudia Fradkin, Erin Ludwick, Judy Pece, Suzanne Lewandowski & Xun Zheng.