Content Area Reading and Literacy

Victoria R. Gillis graduated from North Georgia College with a BS degree in Biology and from Emory University with an MAT in Secondary Science Education. She taught middle and high school science courses including life science, chemistry, physics, and physical science in Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina for 20 years. In the early 1970s, she encountered the ideas and concepts in what was known as content area reading and tried them in her classroom. Her success in using principles of active learning drawn from content area reading led her to return to graduate school to complete a PhD at the University of Georgia in 1994. Victoria taught graduate and undergraduate disciplinary literacy courses at Clemson University for 20 years and served as a volunteer in the Reading and Writing for Critical Thinking project in Eastern Europe and Central America at the turn of the century. She is currently Wyoming Excellence in Education Literacy Chair in the College of Education at the University of Wyoming.   George L. Boggs graduated from King College with a B.A. in English/Literature and Religion before beginning his career as a teacher and coach in the Pacific Northwest. He taught middle school language arts, Latin, Spanish, and technology before returning to graduate school for a MA in Classics from Durham University in Great Britain. Graduate study in a different educational system in an entirely new field helped clarify a lifelong interest in disciplinary literacies. Returning to high school teaching in Georgia, he sought opportunities to help students make sense of the specialized ways of thinking that define school content areas, first, but also workplace and other domains that matter to children. This work culminated in doctoral research at the University of Georgia completed in 2012. His role as literacy researcher and teacher educator has positioned him at Florida State University to develop opportunities for teachers to understand the role of literacy in their subject area goals.   Donna Alvermann is the University of Georgia Appointed Distinguished Research Professor of Language and Literacy Education. She also holds an endowed chair position: The Omer Clyde and Elizabeth Parr Aderhold Professor in Education. Formerly a classroom teacher in Texas and New York, her research focuses on young people’s digital literacies and use of popular media. Author of numerous articles, she has several books to her credit: Adolescents and Literacies in a Digital World; Reconceptualizing the Literacies in Adolescents’ Lives (3rd ed.); Adolescents’ Online Literacies: Connecting Classrooms, Digital Media, and Popular Culture; and Bring It to Class: Unpacking Pop Culture in Literacy Learning. Most recently, she helped in designing an interactive website to learn how a community of researchers and researched objects can push boundaries associated with creating and disseminating “original” work and remixes online using a Creative Commons license.