Kathryn Mitchell Pierce
Kathryn Mitchell Pierce serves as the Writing Specialist at Wydown Middle School in Clayton, Missouri. Prior to teaching at the middle school level, Kathryn spent over a decade teaching in multiage primary classrooms in the Clayton School District and in a college lab school in Columbia, Missouri. Kathryn also spent a decade teaching full time at the college/university level and continues to serve as an adjunct faculty member at several universities.
Kathryn has been involved in teacher research groups and study groups for nearly 3 decades. Her research and publication interests focus on literature study groups, talking and learning in small groups, and supporting critical conversations.
Eric Paulson
Eric J. Paulson received his Ph.D. in Language, Reading, & Culture from the University of Arizona in 2000. His teaching experience includes developmental reading in community colleges and adult literacy organizations for nine years, and English as a Second/Foreign Language in three countries. Research interests focus around readers' deliberate and non-deliberate responses to texts and conceptualizations of literacy processes and literacy contexts, utilizing approaches applied within a social-constructivist framework that include eye movement research, miscue analysis, metaphor analysis and EMMA (Eye Movement Miscue Analysis). He has published in journals that include Reading Research Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Reading Psychology, Teaching English in the Two Year College, and others. He has published three books--Insight from the Eyes: The Science of Effective Reading Instruction (Heinemann), College Reading Research and Practice (IRA) and Scientific Realism in Studies of Reading (Erlbaum). He is Associate Professor of Literacy Education and is the Director of Graduate Studies for the School of Education.
Visit Eric's website at http://ericpaulson.org/
Kevin O'Malley
Kevin O'Malley wanted to create children's book since he was in elementary school.
Once he saw the image of a little boy in a wolf suit chasing after his dog with a fork.
Kevin was hooked.
He sent his first efforts out to publishers in the 9th grade.
Of course he was rejected. But he did not give up.
He sent books ideas out through high school ('79) and art college('83). 165 thousand rejections later
he had his first published book '(92). (It sold well over 17 copies. Most of them to his relatives.)
72 books later and Kevin still images himself as that little hellion.
While he doesn't chase after dogs with a fork,
he still loves jumping down the steps.
Visit Kevin's website at http://www.booksbyomalley.com/index.html
Franki Sibberson
Franki Sibberson has worked for over twenty years as an educator in many different roles--teaching children in a variety of elementary grades, assisting struggling readers in an intervention position, guiding literacy programs K-12 in the central district office, and leading workshops for teachers at the state, regional, and national level. Currently she is an elementary media specialist at Riverside Elementary in Dublin, Ohio. Franki is the co-author with Karen Szymusiak of many books and videos on teaching reading in the intermediate grades, including Beyond Leveled Books, Still Learning to Read, Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop, Bringing Reading to Life, and Making the Most of News Magazines.
Franki also writes regularly in the blog she shares with Mary Lee Hahn, "A Year of Reading." Access the blog at: http://readingyear.blogspot.com/.