People
Center Graduate Students: Becca Woodard
Becca Woodard in a PhD candidate in Language & Literacy in the Curriculum & Instruction Department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Contact Information
Biographical Statement
I studied psychology and sociology at UIUC before I became a Teach for America corps member in New York City. I taught middle school English Language Arts in Washington Heights for five years, and also engaged in extensive literacy-related professional development with Columbia Teachers College. I returned to the University of Illinois to pursue a PhD in Language & Literacy in the department of Curriculum and Instruction with a concentration in Writing Studies. My major research interests are related to the social and cultural processes of teaching literacy including: qualitative studies of teacher practice that recognize the historical and cultural trajectories of practice; the development and transformation of more equitable instructional practices related to students’ use of written and spoken language; and the politics of identity and language in school, such as the ways teachers assess writing and structure classroom discourse. My current research for my doctoral dissertation, conducted under the direction of Professor Sarah McCarthey, examines the notion that “writing teachers must write” by tracing the literate participation of two elementary ESL/bilingual teachers and two high school English teachers at a local National Writing Project Summer Institute, in their writing classrooms, and across various everyday literate practices.
Research Interests
Social and cultural processes of teaching literacy, identity and language use, out-of-school literacies, k-16 writing pedagogy and assessment, technology and writing, university-school partnerships, qualitative research methodologies.
Courses Taught
• CI 475/476: Teaching elementary reading and language arts I/II (UIUC, instructor)
• ED 648: Secondary methods, Interdisciplinary teaching (Pace University, online TA)
• ED 523: Middle childhood/early adolescence, community, culture and identity (Pace University, online TA)
• ED 630: Human development in the school context (Pace University, online TA)
• ED 632: Language, meaning and development of global perspectives in diverse schools (Pace University, online TA)
• ED 690: Teacher as researcher (Pace University, online TA)
Other Positions Held
• Research Assistant, Assess-As-You-Go-Project, Bill Cope
• Research Assistant, The Role of Professional Development in Writing Project, Sarah McCarthey
• Graduate Assistant, University of Illinois Writing Project
• Writers Workshop Consultant
• Education Pioneers Fellow, Chicago
• New Teacher Observation Specialist, Chicago Teaching Fellows
Publications
• Roozen, K., Prior, P, Woodard, R. L., & Kline, S. (in press). The transformative potential of laminating trajectories of pedagogical practice: Three teachers’ developing practices and identities. In T. Lillis, K. Harrington, M. Lea, and S. Mitchell (Eds.), Working with Academic Literacies: Research, theory, and design. Parlor Press & WAC Clearinghouse.
• McCarthey, S. J., Woodard, R. L., & Kang, G. (2012). Access and teachers’ perceptions of professionaldevelopment in writing. In C. Bazerman, C. Dean, K. Lunsford, S. Null, P. Rogers, & A. Stansell (Eds.), International Advances in Writing Research: Cultures, Places, Measures. Parlor Press & WAC Clearninghouse. Available at http://wac.colostate.edu/books/wrab2011/
• McCarthey, S. J., Woodard, R. L., & Kang, G. (2011). Teachers’ perceptions of professional development inwriting. In P. J. Dunston, & L. B. Gambrell (Eds.), Literacy Research Association Yearbook. Clemson University.
• Woodard, R. L. (2009). Your students write how much? Utilizing writing notebooks. In Professional Teachers Handbook (pp.103-106). New York City, NY: Teachers Network.