What follows is a partial list of some BLTN members’ awards, presentations, and publications during the 2021-22 school year. Do you have news to be shared? Contact us!

Professor Damián Baca chaired “Rhetorical Sovereignty in Action: Community Literacies by and for Indigenous Stakeholders,” a presentation featuring Rex Lee Jim (MA ’01, MLitt ’19), Dr. Ceci Lewis (MA ‘99), Kyle White (BLTN NextGen La Casa Roja) at the 2021 Coalition for Community Writing Conference 2021. 

Lorena Germán (MA ‘14)  published Textured Teaching: A Framework for Culturally Sustaining Practices (Heinemann). Germán also appeared on PBS Media’s November 8 American Narratives: Spotlight on Ernest Hemingway.

Dr. Kayla Hostetler was awarded a Ph.D. with Honors, in Language and Literacy, from the University of South Carolina’s Education Department, having defended her dissertation, The Tale of Two Pandemics: Culturally Relevant Pedagogy in a Blended Learning Environment Amidst COVID-19 and Racism Pandemics. Hostetler and student / NextGen Youth Advisory Board member Erica Brown presented at the Equity in Education Conference at the Center for the Education and Equity of African American Students conference in January. After her presentation, Brown was invited to co-publish with a professor in attendance. 

Lauren Jewett was among the educators honored by New Orleans City Business in its Power 20: Education 2021 publication. Lauren recently published “Being an NBCT Comes with an Obligation to Equity,” with Megan Jenny, in the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards blog.

Hannah Lipman was among many BLTN members who presented at the 2021 NCTE conference with her presentation, “What does Community Mean to Our Youth?: Disrupting and Re-Envisioning the Classroom.” Rich Gorham (MA ‘01), Lee Krishnan (MA ‘07), Jennifer Coreas (MA ‘18), Sarahi Rodriguez, Mohsin Tejani (MA ‘01), and David Wandera (MA ‘08, MLitt ‘13) presented “The Bread Loaf International Peace Literacy Network: Leveraging Online Spaces to Unite Families and Teachers Globally”. Heather Jones and Kayla Hostetler created “Building Community through Student Led Writing Events: Students Demonstrate Methods to Create Successful Family Literacy Nights and Cross-Site Gatherings” Alfredo Celédon Luján (MA ’87) closed the conference with a remarkable presidential address. 

Cole Moran published “BPS Needs a Democratic Vision for the Future of Open-enrollment Schools,” an editorial in The Boston Globe. (See Moran’s article, “Organizing Youth Voice when the Stakes are High” in this issue for context.)

BLTN Director, Dr. Beverly Moss, was awarded the 2021 Coalition for Community Writing’s Distinguished Engaged Scholar in Community Writing Award. According to the announcement on the Ohio State website “The Distinguished Engaged Scholar in Community Writing Award is presented to an individual who has made a significant contribution to community writing, which includes scholarship areas such as service-learning, community-based research, community literacy, ethnography, community publishing, advocacy and activist writing.” Beverly recently completed her tenure as Watson Visiting Scholar for Spring Semester at the University of Louisville. There she taught a graduate seminar, Community Literacies/Literacy in Communities, while directing BLTN.

Clara Natanobah‘s song “Hózhóogoo Dahwiit’áál” (We Will Sing in Beauty), was selected by Disney to appear in a cartoon celebrating Native American Heritage Month. Natanobah was profiled in the Chilkat Valley (Alaska) News.

Faith Omosefe, BLTN NextGen’s Youth Advisory Board Co-Chair, representing the Lawrence, MA site, has been selected as the Youth of the Year for both Lawrence and for the State of Massachusetts Boys and Girls Clubs. As part of the honor, Faith received a $20,000 Myra H. Kraft Giving Back Scholarship which she will apply to her first-year attendance at Amherst College in 2022-23.

Kurt Ostrow, MFA candidate at The Ohio State University, published an essay on MUNA’s “Silk Chiffon” in Electric Literature. Kurt actually has an article forthcoming in Rethinking Schools about a lesson on writing letters to one’s younger self, and an essay forthcoming in Catapult about the power of group chats.

Sairey Pickering was selected as a “Culture of Thinking Fellow” in association with Project Zero. The fellowship focus this year has been on Cultures of Thinking in Action.”

Monica Rowley was selected as a University of Pennsylvania Climate Champion Teacher as part of the Penn Program in Environmental Humanities’ My Climate Story public research project. 

Sara Taggart was honored as Teacher of the Month by a local radio station in Columbus Ohio.

Corey Wozniak (MA ’21) recently published “The Buddha and the Bellagio: (Teaching) Religion in Sin City” in The Revealer, a publication of the Center for Religion and Media at New York University.