David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English
2024 Recipient: Todd Craig
New York City College of Technology and CUNY Graduate Center
“K for the Way”: DJ Rhetoric and Literacy for 21st Century Writing Studies
“K for the Way” explores writing, rhetoric, and literacy from the perspective of the Hip Hop DJ. Todd Craig, a DJ himself, establishes and investigates the function of DJ rhetoric and literacy, illuminating the DJ as a fruitful example for (re)envisioning approaches to writing, research, and analysis in contemporary educational settings. Because it is widely recognized that the DJ was the catalyst for the creation of Hip Hop culture, this book begins a new conversation in which Hip Hop DJs introduce ideas about poetics and language formation through the modes, practices, and techniques they engage in on a daily basis. (University of Colorado Press)
Todd Craig – Educator. Scholar. DJ. A product of Ravenswood and Queensbridge Houses in Queens, New York, Todd Craig is a writer, educator and DJ whose career meshes his love of writing, teaching and music. His research inhabits the intersection of writing and rhetoric, sound studies and Hip Hop studies. He is the author of “K for the Way”: DJ Rhetoric and Literacy for 21st Century Writing Studies (Utah State University Press) which examines the Hip Hop DJ as twenty-first century new media reader, writer, and creator of the discursive elements of DJ rhetoric and literacy. Craig’s publications include the multimodal novel tor’cha (pronounced “torture”), and essays in various edited collections and scholarly journals including The Bloomsbury Handbook of Hip Hop Pedagogy, Amplifying Soundwriting, Methods and Methodologies for Research in Digital Writing and Rhetoric, Fiction International, Radical Teacher, Modern Language Studies, Changing English, Kairos, Composition Studies and Sounding Out! Dr. Craig earned his doctorate in English from St. John’s University, and holds an Ed.M. in Learning and Teaching from Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a B.A. in Sociology from Williams College. He started this educational journey at St. George’s School as an ABC scholar (A Better Chance).
Dr. Craig teaches courses on writing, rhetoric, African American and Hip Hop Studies, and is the co-host of the podcast “Stuck Off the Realness” with multi-platinum recording artist Havoc of Mobb Deep. Presently, Craig is an Associate Professor of African American Studies at New York City College of Technology and English at the CUNY Graduate Center.
Literacy is how we decipher the intricacies and inner-workings of the world. Without that roadmap, we are lost. Great literacy educators embrace and value where students are, tapping into the pulse of their lives both inside and outside the classroom.
Gloria Powell, Keith Ware…
Dynamic models appear in myriad places: in our classrooms and living rooms,
Eileen de los Reyes, Marley Marl…
in college lectures halls and on social media,
Don Oliver, Rapsody…
on our radios and streaming outlets.
Stretch and Bobbito, Mobb Deep…
My literacy life was invaluably impacted by my neighborhood, teachers and Hip Hop culture’s participants.
Pete Rock, BreakBeat Lou…
And our most beloved literacy mentors insure that in intellectual, public and private spaces, we gauge the landscape,
Leo Stehle…
move comfortably within it,
Clara C. Park…
and always understand the assignment.
Carmen Kynard…
Our joy is elevated when those lessons in communication come to fruition.
Award Details
Nomination Deadline: March 1
Purpose:
This award honors an outstanding work of scholarship or research in language, literature, rhetoric, or pedagogy and learning.
Eligibility:
Any work or works of scholarship or research in language, literature, rhetoric, or pedagogy and learning published during the previous five-year period prior to January 1 of the year of the award. If an individual or company nominates more than three books, only the first three of its nominations to be received will be considered. Only one recipient will be selected each year.
Current NCTE Executive Committee members are not eligible for this award. Recipients of this award are not eligible to receive any other Executive Committee approved awards in the same year, nor in the following year.
Award Criteria:
Any published research (a work or works by the same author or authors) in language, literature, rhetoric, teaching procedures, or cognitive processes that may sharpen the teaching or the content of English at any instructional level. Publication must be available in English. Commercially published instructional materials are not eligible for consideration. Reports of doctoral studies, while not precluded from consideration for the Russell Award, are typically considered as part of NCTE’s separate “Promising Researcher” program.
Award Specifics:
The award recipient is announced in November each year and honored at the NCTE Annual Convention with a plaque and honorarium.
The award was established in 1963 as the Distinguished Research Award and renamed in 1966 to honor the Council’s late president David H. Russell.
Deadline:
Nomination letter must be sent by no later than March 1 to Sarah Miller, smiller@ncte.org. You will receive a confirmation and information for shipping/mailing the publication to the review committee.
Nominations should include:
- A nomination letter with your name, phone, email, author, title, publisher, date of publication, and one paragraph indicating your reasons for nominating the work. Please provide this letter as a separate document (PDF, Word, etc.) and on letterhead if possible.
- Three copies of the publication for distribution to the Selection Committee. If that is not possible, provide full bibliographic information so that the Selection Committee will not encounter any difficulty in locating the publication nominated.
NOTE: Publications sent without supporting documents will not be considered.
Judging:
The Selection Committee determines the winner based upon the nominations meeting the criteria each year. The Selection Committee consists of three members, who serve three-year staggered terms. The chair of the committee shall be the member who has served longest. Each year, before the NCTE Annual Convention, the incumbent NCTE president shall appoint one member of the committee to replace the retiring member.
David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English Previous Recipients
2023 Aja Y. Martinez, University of North Texas, Texas, Counterstory: The Rhetoric and Writing of Critical Race Theory
2022 Detra Price-Dennis, The Ohio State University, Ohio, and Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces (TC Press, 2021)
2021 Cedric Burrows, Marquette University, Wisconsin, The Black Rhetorical Presence in White Culture (University of Pittsburgh Press, Fall 2020)
2020 Samuel J. Tanner, Penn State University system, Pennsylvania, Whiteness, Pedagogy and Youth in America (Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2018)
2019 Nicole Mirra, Rutgers Graduate School of Education, New Jersey, Educating for Empathy: Literacy Learning and Civic Engagement (Teachers College Press, 2018)
2018 Gerald Campano, University of Pennsylvania, María Paula Ghiso, Teachers College, Columbia University, Bethany J. Welch, Aquinas Center, Philadelphia, Partnering with Immigrant Communities: Action through Literacy (Teachers College Press, 2016)