2007 Outstanding ELA Educator Award Winner

Rudine Sims Bishop is the thirteenth recipient of the NCTE Outstanding Educator in the English Language Arts Award.

The Outstanding ELA Award recognizes a distinguished national or international educator who has made major contributions to the field of language arts in elementary education. The Elementary Section Steering Committee celebrated Rudine's contributions to the English language arts at the Elementary Section Get-Together during the NCTE Annual Convention in New York City.

Rudine Bishop is professor emeritus in the School of Teaching and Learning at Ohio State University. She was a doctoral student at Wayne State University and a researcher with Ken Goodman’s miscue studies. This led to her dissertation research looking at oral reading miscues of first graders who spoke an African American dialect. Rudine then taught at SUNY in Buffalo, University of Massachusetts, and Ohio State University where, with Janet Hickman, she directed the highly regarded annual OSU Children’s Literature Conference. 

Rudine has an exceptionally long list of professional achievements. She was one of the first researchers to produce scholarly criticism about the way African-American lives are represented in children's books and the impact that representation has on children's lives with her ground-breaking book, Shadow and Substance: Afro-American Experience in Contemporary Children's Literature.

She has held positions in many professional organizations including the National Council of Teachers of English, the International Reading Association, The Center for Expansion of Language and Thinking (CELT), The National Conference on Research in Language and Literacy (NCRLL), The American Library Association (ALA), and the United States Board on Books for Young People (USBBY).

She has served on many editorial advisory boards including The New Advocate, Teaching and Learning Literature: Parent’s Guide, and Book Links. She was one of three members serving on the Boston Globe Horn Book Award Committee, 1987–1988 and again in 2003–2004. Rudine also has served on both Newbery and Caldecott selection committees.

Rudine is the recipient of many awards including induction into the IRA Hall of Fame, the NCTE Distinguished Service Award, a Pi Lambda Theta Citation Award for outstanding contributions to the study of children’s literature, the Arbuthnot Award, given by IRA for Outstanding College or University Teachers of Children’s and Young Adult Literature, and the Whole Language Umbrella (WLU) Lifetime Membership Award.

Read the article about Rudine "Making A Difference through Literature" by Peggy Oxley which appeared in Language Arts, July, 2006.  (PDF) 

Also read about Rudine in "Profiles and Perspectives" by Violet J. Harris which appeared in Language Arts, November, 2007.  (PDF) 

Selected Publications

Bishop, R. S. (2007). Free within Ourselves: The Development of African American Children's Literature. Heinemann. 

Bishop, R. S. (2003). "Reframing the debate about cultural authenticity." In D. Fox and K. G. Short, (Eds.) Stories matter: The complexity of cultural authenticity in children’s literature (pp. 25–37). Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Bishop, R. S. & McNair, J. (2002). "A centennial salute to Arna
Bontemps, Langston Hughes, and Lorenz Graham." The New Advocate,
15, 109–120.

Bishop, R. S. (1999). "African American children’s literature: Anchor,
compass, and sail." In A. Marek & C. Edelsky (Eds.), Reflections and
connections: Essays in honor of Kenneth S. Goodman’s influence on
language education (pp. 355–370). Cresskill, NJ: Hampton.

Bishop, R. S. (1999). Wonders: The best children’s poems of Effie Lee
Newsome. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.

Bishop, R. S. (1998). "Working together for literacy: Faces of hope."
Journal of Children’s Literature, 24, 90–97.

Bishop, R. S. (1997). "Selecting literature for a multicultural curriculum." In V. Harris (Ed.), Using multiethnic literature in the K-8 classroom. (pp. 1-20). Norwood, MA: Christopher-Gordon Publishers, Inc.  (ReadWriteThink lesson plan)

Bishop, R. S. (1994). Kaleidoscope: A multicultural booklist for grades K–8, First Edition. Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Cai, M., & Bishop, R. S. (1994). "Multicultural literature for children: Towards a clarification of the concept." In A. H. Dyson & C. Genishi (Eds.), The need for story: Cultural diversity in the classroom and community. (pp. 90–97). Urbana, IL: NCTE.

Bishop, R. S. (1990). Presenting Walter Dean Myers. Boston, MA: Twayne Publishers. 

Bishop, R. S. (1982). Shadow and Substance: Afro-American Experience in Contemporary Children's Literature. Urbana, IL: NCTE.