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Leadership Awards

Julia E. Berry Research Award to Study Careers of English Majors (The Berry Research Award)

In 2026, two projects were awarded. Congratulations to Sarah J. Donovan, Rochelle (Shelley) Rodrigo and Tiffany Portewig!

 

2026 Recipient:

Dr. Sarah J. Donovan, Oklahoma State University

 

From Relational Assessment to Institutional Grading: How English Majors Develop Assessment Literacy across Their Careers

 

Dr. Sarah J. Donovan is an associate professor of secondary English education at Oklahoma State University. Her leadership within NCTE and its assemblies includes serving as the newly elected co-chair of the NCTE Assembly for Research and as a former board member for the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE (ALAN). She is a member of ALAN’s Amelia Elizabeth Walden Book Award Committee and previously served on the editorial board of Writers Who Care for the English Language Arts Teacher Educators (ELATE) Commission on Writing Teacher Education. At the state level, she was the Young Writers Coordinator for the Oklahoma Council of Teachers of English (OKCTE) and received their 2024 Leadership Award. Sarah’s research focuses on the ethical, relational, and humanistic dimensions of literacy in teacher education. Her current project, supported by the 2026 Julia E. Berry Research Award, is a longitudinal study tracing how English majors develop assessment literacy and navigate the tensions between disciplinary values—such as interpretation and voice—and institutional grading systems across their careers. She is a coauthor of Assessing Students with Poetry Writing Across Content Areas and Teaching Genocide and Holocaust Education in ELA Classrooms. She is a 24-year member of NCTE.

I hope to impact the world by creating infrastructures where teachers have room to compose their careers, curricula, and communities with others. My work challenges measurement practices that reduce literacy to what can be counted and positions assessment as a site of human formation. Through ethical ELA, ethical literacy, the Harm and Healing framework, and books such as Teach Like a Writer (forthcoming), Writer to Writer, Youth Writing Lives, and Teaching Genocide and Holocaust Education in ELA Classrooms, I create spaces where educators encounter difficult histories and the present, read their fields critically, and enter into conversation as writers, composing knowledge together. I want literacy to remain a place for ethical attention and shared authorship.

2026 Recipient:

Rochelle (Shelley) Rodrigo and Tiffany Portewig, University of Arizona

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pathways to Publishing from Bachelors Degrees in English

 

Rochelle (Shelley) Rodrigo, a member of NCTE for more than 25 years, is the senior director of the writing program; professor in the Rhetoric, Composition, and the Teaching of English (RCTE) program in the Department of English; and affiliate faculty with the College of Information Science at the University of Arizona. She researches how what can be considered newer technologies better facilitate communicative interactions, specifically teaching and learning. Shelley recently coauthored the award-winning Teaching Literacy Online: Engaging, Analyzing, and Producing in Multiple Media; is working on the fourth coauthored edition of The Cengage Guide to Research; and coedited Rhetorically Rethinking Usability: Theories, Practices, and Methodologies. Her scholarly work has appeared in journals such as College Composition and Communication, Journal of Writing Assessment, Composition Forum, Composition Studies, Computers and Composition, Technical Communication Quarterly, and Teaching English in the Two-Year College, as well as in various edited collections. In 2022, she became a research associate with the Readability Consortium and a distinguished fellow in the Center for University Education Scholarship (CUES) at the University of Arizona. In 2021, she was elected vice president of NCTE (a four-year term including president in 2024) and was awarded the Arizona Technology in Education Association’s Ruth Catalano Friend of Technology Innovation Award. In 2018, she became an Adobe Education Leader, in 2014 she was awarded Old Dominion University’s annual Teaching with Technology Award, in 2012 she received the Digital Humanities High Powered Computing Fellowship, and in 2010 she became a Google Certified Teacher/Innovator.

Tiffany Portewig, PhD, is the director of Professional and Technical Writing (PTW) and an assistant professor of practice at the University of Arizona, where she teaches courses in user experience (UX) research, content strategy, technical writing, document design, grant writing, and the PTW capstone. In addition to her academic positions at the University of Arizona, Auburn University, and Texas Tech University, she has worked more than 20 years as a consultant, technical writer, editor, and educator in a variety of industries and academic settings. Tiffany’s research interests focus on technical communication, specifically in the areas of UX research and design, visual rhetoric, AI literacy, and technical editing and publishing. Tiffany has published articles in Technical Communication and the Journal of Technical Writing and Communication, a book chapter in Qualitative Research in Technical Communication, and, recently, a textbook titled Introduction to User Experience (UX) Research for Technical Communicators. She received the Frank R. Smith Distinguished Journal Article Award in Technical Communication and the Society for Technical Communication’s Research Grant $10,000 Annual Award. Tiffany served as the book review editor for IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication and is currently serving as a guest coeditor for an upcoming special issue.

Our research seeks to understand how English programs can help students develop the literacy required for a career in the publishing industry. Our work in this area seeks to make pathways more visible and demonstrate to students how their skills in reading, writing, research, and communication can contribute to the publishing industry. We also seek to identify barriers and expand opportunities for students. This research can create stronger connections between literacy developed as an English major and the type of literacy valued by the publishing industry.

 

Julia E. Berry, an NCTE member, gave a $10,000 bequest to NCTE for the purposes of establishing an award to further her interest in, as specified in her will, Careers in English Majors. The NCTE Executive Committee approved the award purpose and details outlined below in 2019.

 

Award Details

Submission Deadline:  May 1 (Every other year.) 

  • Notification deadline: August 15
  • Award recipient announcement: Sept 1
  • Award presentation: NCTE Annual Convention

Purpose:
The Berry Research Award to Study Careers of English Majors (Berry Research Award) supports NCTE members in the teaching, learning, and application of literacy learning. The Berry Research Award provides research support for an NCTE member(s) who proposes a research project that studies “the careers of English Majors and/or the role and function of English in career development.” This award will also support the study of the impact of the English language in the broadest of senses as well as literacy-related majors like writing studies, linguistics, and English education.

Award winners must convey results in at least two final products: one that is addressed to a scholarly audience of researchers and teachers in the field of English and/or literacy studies and one for a clearly specified audience beyond those in the field. Award winners will be required to present their research at one of the two NCTE Conventions following the award (e.g., if awarded in 2022, must present in 2023 or 2024). As an organization, NCTE is committed to supporting the diversity of applicants, projects, and research strategies included in these awards.

Frequency and Number of Awards

This award will be limited to 5 recipients over a 10 year period, beginning with the first award presented at NCTE’s 2022 Annual Convention in Anaheim, CA. The award schedule will be:

  • November 2022, Anaheim, CA (present 2023 or 2024 Annual Convention)
  • November 2024, Boston, MA (present 2025 or 2026 Annual Convention)
  • November 2026, TBD (present 2027 or 2028 Annual Convention)
  • November 2028, TBD (present 2029 or 2030 Annual Convention)

Selection Committee

The Chair of the College Section Steering Committee serves as the Chair of the selection committee. The NCTE President appoints two members of the College Section Steering Committee and two members of the Secondary Section to serve as members of the committee. Final selection of the award’s recipients will be made by the College Section Steering Committee and the NCTE Executive Committee.

Eligibility:
Researchers may submit only one research proposal per award cycle. All members of the research team listed on the proposal must be members of NCTE at the time of proposal submission. Proposals are expected to last up to two years but can run for shorter periods of time. We remind nominators, nominees, and selection committee members that members of NCTE Conferences—CCCC, CEL, ELATE, LLA, and TYCA—are members, by definition, of NCTE.

Current NCTE Executive Committee members are not eligible for this award. Recipients for this award are not eligible to receive any other Executive Committee approved awards in the same year, nor in the following year.

Award Specifics:
● $1,500 in funds to support the research project
● A certificate is given to the recipient during an awards ceremony which takes place at the NCTE Annual Convention.
● For the year in which the recipient presents their research at the Annual Convention, the recipient also receives a travel voucher up to $1,100 to cover transportation, lodging, NCTE Annual Convention registration and meals.

Please Note:  If a research team is proposed, there is only travel funding for the principal investigator.

How to Submit:

  • Submission deadline May 1 (every other year)
  • Submit proposals as a single PDF by using the form below
  • We invite proposals for research that employ diverse perspectives and methodologies, including historical, archival, rhetorical, qualitative, quantitative, ethnographic, and textual
  • Email NCTEawards@ncte.org with any questions

Proposals should include:

  1. A cover page that contains the title of the proposal, the names and full contact information of the investigator(s) (institution, address, phone, email), and, in the event of multiple investigators, the designation of a principal contact (maximum: 1 page).
  2. A narrative of no more than 5 single-spaced pages (12-point font, 1-inch margins) that
    • Describes how the proposer(s) fulfills the criteria of studying “English Majors;”
    • Defines the project and articulates specific research questions;
    • Explains the significance of the project and identifies the gaps in knowledge it seeks to fill;
    • Situates the project in relevant scholarly conversations about the subject to be studied;
    • Carefully describes the proposed methodology and methods, including potential challenges or limitations (if relevant, includes plans to submit to submit to a human subject protection program and/or institutional review board);
    • Describes the personnel and financial resources needed to complete the project, arguing why they are necessary and relevant; and
    • Describes what the project will add to existing conversations among academic and public audiences and identifies at least two final products – one that is addressed to a scholarly audience of researchers and teachers in the field and one that is addressed to a specifically identified more public audience. Academic products should be submitted to NCTE publications (e.g., College English, Research of Teaching in English, CCC) for first review, prior to submission to other publications (though receipt does not guarantee acceptance).

3.  A 1-page description of the credentials the investigator(s) brings to the project (relevant details about positions and teaching/research experience is sufficient) (maximum: 1 page).

4.  A detailed budget with specific rationale for all expenses. Funds may be used for direct costs associated with the research, such as reassigned time/course buyout, student assistance, software, stipends for research subjects, etc. If student assistance is included in the budget, proposals should explain how the assistance will provide a learning/mentoring opportunity for the students involved. Please note that this grant may not be used to pay overhead, indirect costs, or travel to the NCTE Convention. Equipment costs are allowable if justified (maximum: 1 page).

Maximum proposal length, including all components described above, is 8 pages.

NOTE: Publications sent without supporting documents will not be considered.

Submit proposals as a single PDF using the form below. Email NCTEawards@ncte.org with any questions.

 

Award Criteria:
Berry Research Award to Study Careers of English Majors Criteria and Rubric

 

Julia E Berry Research Award Previous Recipients

2024 Kelli J. Sassi, Northern Michigan University

2022 Erin McNeill, Indiana University in Bloomington