Founding Director
Shelbie Witte is the Kim and Chuck Watson Endowed Chair in Education and Professor of English Education and Adolescent Literacy at Oklahoma State University. She was previously an Associate Professor and Coordinator in English Education in the School of Teacher Education at The Florida State University. Witte studies 21st century literacies and multi-modal approaches to adolescent literacy learning, particularly the intersection of these literacies and literacy pedagogy. She has published in the Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Science Education, Voices from the Middle, Library and Information Science Research, and other journals centering on 21st century literacies. She is the co-editor of six books focused on this work, including Writing Can Change Everything: Middle-Level Kids Writing Themselves into the World (forthcoming, 2020), Studying Gaming Literacies (2020), Playing with Teaching (2020), Literacy Engagement through Peritextual Analysis (2019), Towards a More Visual Literacy (2019), and Young Adult Literature in the Digital World (2019). She continues to actively serve as a member of various committees and projects of the National Council of Teachers of English, including co-editing (along with Sara Kajder) Voices from the Middle, the premiere middle-level journal for English Language Arts teachers. She is currently vice-president of the Oklahoma Council of Teachers of English and director emeritus of the Oklahoma State University Writing Project, a site of the National Writing Project. She earned a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis on English Education and Technology from Kansas State University, a M.S. in English Education from Kansas State University, and a B.S. in Instructional Leadership and Academic Curriculum with an emphasis in English Education from the University of Oklahoma.
ADVISORY BOARD
2025-2028
Coming Soon
Dr. Bryan Ripley Crandall is the Director of the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield University where he holds a dual position in the Graduate School of Education and Allied Professions (GSEAP) and English Department in the College of Arts and Sciences. Crandall has 15+ years of urban education experience and has promoted youth to publish, perform, and educate others through the power of oral and written communication. He was a high school English teacher in Louisville, Kentucky, where he became a consultant for the National Writing Project, served on the state’s Writing Advisory Council, and was trained to be a Critical Friends Coach through the National School Reform Faculty. Dr. Crandall is a former Divergent Award winner.
Dr. Jennifer S. Dail is a professor of English education in the Department of English at Kennesaw State University in Kennesaw, Georgia. She also directs the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project (KMWP), a National Writing Project (NWP) site serving teachers Pre-K through college in all content areas. She has received multiple grant awards supporting the work of KMWP, including an Improving Teacher Quality grant. Prior to joining the faculty at Kennesaw State University in 2006, she taught English education courses at the University of Alabama and taught middle and high school English. Dail served as co-editor of SIGNAL Journal, International Reading Association's journal focusing on young adult literature, from 2008-2013. She is also an active member of several educational organizations, including the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the NWP. She serves on the board of the Georgia Council of Teachers of English (GCTE) as the Vice President and conference director. Dail has published multiple articles on young adult literature and technology in the ALAN Review and has several book chapters focusing on this work as well. Dr. Dail is a former Divergent Award winner.
Dr. Rául Alberto Mora is an Associate Professor of English Education and Literacy Studies at Universidad Pontificia Bolivarniana in Medellin. At UPB, he teaches undergraduate and graduate seminars on teaching methods, literacy, and qualitative research, and helped create the MA in Learning and Teaching Processes in Second Languages, program that he coordinated between August 2013 and June 2016. His current research explores second language literacies in urban spaces and gaming communities in Medellín, the pedagogical implementation of alternative literacies in second-language education, the use of transmedial discourse in sociocultural studies, and critical frameworks for English Language Teaching in Colombia, topics he develops with his research team at the Literacies in Second Languages Project (LSLP). Dr. Mora holds a B.A. in Modern Language Education from Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, an M.A. in Teacher Education (as a Fulbright Scholar), and a Ph.D. in Language and Literacy, both from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Mora is a former Divergent Award winner.
