Led by elementary educator Lynsey Burkins, this cohort focuses on picturebooks and elementary texts. Please see below for more information about the cohort members.
The cohort meets April 1, 2024 – August 15, 2024.
Meet the Cohort
Lynsey Burkins is a proud educator who has worked for children for the past 20 years. She works toward creating antiracist spaces where children feel free, have agency, and know they are loved. She believes books are primary vehicles to help children become freer. Lynsey received her master’s degree from The Ohio State University in Language, Literacy, and Culture. She currently serves third-grade students and presents on topics that include using literature to help students make sense of their world and literature as a vehicle to nurture the spirit and minds of students. Lynsey is a past National Chair of NCTE’s Build Your Stack, an initiative that works to build teacher’s expertise in knowing and using quality literature in the classroom. Lynsey is the coauthor of Classroom Design for Student Agency with Franki Sibberson, published by NCTE. You can find Lynsey at @lburkins on Twitter.
Abby Kreisa has been teaching since 2004 and joined Wisconsin Rapids Public Schools (WRPS) in 2005. She received a bachelor of music degree in 2004 and a master of science in education in 2008, both from the University of Wisconsin – Stevens Point. She went on to complete an additional reading program at the University of Wisconsin – Stout in 2011. She currently serves as WEB Co-Coordinator, Student Council Advisor, and Secondary Literacy Co-Coordinator. After teaching band for many years, she transferred into a sixth-grade language arts position and views it as one of the best decisions of her life. She is excited to join the This Story Matters Teacher Corps and believes that many universal truths are between the pages of a great middle grade novel.
Mac Mann-Wood is a recent graduate of the English education graduate program at Teachers College, Columbia University. Their research focuses on abolitionist perspectives in education, storytelling, queer pedagogies, and critical consciousness. They are a public-school educator in the New York City Department of Education. When they aren’t teaching, Mac loves running, reading, and spending time with family.
Dr. Lisa Ortmann is an associate professor in education at Gustavus Adolphus College in Minnesota, where she works to prepare teachers of literacy across the grade levels and content areas. Her research applies sociocultural theories of language and literacy to the study of teachers’ practices to disrupt traditional barriers of entry for students into academic spaces. Her work as an educator, scholar, and literacy leader in national and state professional organizations centers advocacy for teachers as the leaders of learning in their classrooms. Recent publications include “Developing Responsive Disciplinary Literacies for Student Teaching in Social Studies” in JAAL and “The Learner Profiles of Novice Literacy Coaches” in Reading Horizons.
Dr. Sherry Rankins-Robertson is chair and professor of writing and rhetoric at the University of Central Florida. Her research includes community-engaged writing, writing program administration, and teaching and administration in online environments. Sherry has coedited two book collections and coauthored a first-year composition textbook, along with numerous articles, book chapters, and special issues of journals. She has held leadership roles on executive committees and task forces in the field of writing. For the past twenty-five years, Sherry has taught college-level writing. For more than a decade, she has been teaching writing in prisons; this semester, she is teaching a mindful writing, mindful movement course in the Florida Department of Corrections, as she is a 200-hour registered yoga teacher. Her passion for reading began as a young child through her mother’s reading aloud to her and her siblings and through their family’s weekly visits to the public library. During her undergraduate education, Sherry took a writing course called “Writing for Children and Families” with Dr. Toran Isom that spurred her dedication to literacy access and to textual representation of all families and individuals in children’s books. She enjoys yoga and travel.
Deborah Riddle has been a Chicago Public Schools teacher for more than 10 years. She also is the proud awardee of the coveted Rochelle Lee Teacher of the Year. The award was named in honor of Rochelle Lee, a Chicago Public Schools educator and librarian, who inspired generations of students to be impassioned readers. Deborah has taught special education for more than five years; she is very passionate about advocating for that population, and her goal has always been to provide access points to learning through engaging academic experiences of self-discovery for students who struggle to learn in the traditional manner. Deborah is in the final stages of having her first novel being published; this book is the first in a four-part series focusing on social-emotional learning through the lens of insects. She enjoys collaborating with forward-thinking groups of individuals on a common goal. She is a lifelong Chicagoan, and enjoys listening to jazz, new age, gospel, and Celtic music in her spare time.