Awards

ELATE James Moffett Memorial Award

2023 Award Recipients: Shannon Potts and Jonathan Marine, “Invisible Writing Revisited: Investigating Cognitive Processes in K-13 Composition”

Shannon Potts is a middle school English language arts teacher, researcher, and doctoral student from New York City. When she is not in a classroom of some kind, Shannon can be found traveling, standing on docks waiting for crew boats, or walking her dog in Central Park—all while usually thinking about her teaching and the life of James Moffett.

Jonathan M. Marine is a writing teacher and doctoral student in the Writing and Rhetoric Program at George Mason University. His research interests include writing engagement, content analysis, longitudinal writing development, graffiti rhetorics, and the pedagogy and theory of James Moffett. He can be reached at jonathanmmarine@gmail.com.

Award Details

Application Deadline: September 15, 2024

Purpose:
NCTE’s English Language Arts Teacher Educators (ELATE), in conjunction with the National Writing Project, offers this grant to support teacher research projects that further the spirit and scholarship of James Moffett. Moffett, a great champion of the voices of K-12 teachers, focused on such ideas as the necessity of student-centered curricula, writing across the curriculum, alternatives to standardized testing, and spiritual growth in education and life.

Award Criteria:
Applications for the Moffett Award should be in the form of a proposal for a project that one or more K-12 classroom teachers wish to pursue and must include:

1. A cover page that includes the applicant’s name, work and home telephone numbers and addresses, email address, a brief profile of the applicant’s current school and students, and a brief teaching history (when and where the applicant has taught)
2. A proposal (not more than 5 pages, double-spaced, 12-point font) that includes an introduction and rationale for the work (What is the problem or question to be studied? How might such a study influence the project teacher’s practice and potentially the practice of other teachers? Why is such a project important?); a description of the connection to the spirit and scholarship of James Moffett; initial objectives for the study (realizing these might shift during the project); a clear, focused project description that includes a timeline (What will be done? When? How? By whom?); a method of evaluating the project (What indicators might reviewers note that suggest the work was valuable to the researcher and to other teachers?); and a narrative budget (How will the money be spent?).
3. A letter of support from someone familiar with the applicant’s teaching and perceived ability to implement and assess the proposed project

Award Specifics
Award winners receive:

• A certificate designating the individual as the recipient of the ELATE James Moffett Memorial Award
• A monetary award (up to $1,000) to be used toward implementation of the proposed project

Proposals will be judged on such criteria as the strength of the connection to James Moffett’s scholarship and the perceived value and feasibility of the project.

Submit proposals to elate@ncte.org by September 15, 2024.