Conference Presenters
Dr. Fenice Boyd
"Diversity and the Curriculum: Using Multiple Text Types as Essential"
Dr. Fenice Boyd is an associate professor and associate dean for the Learning and Instruction Department in Teacher Education at SUNY Buffalo. Dr. Boyd has a Ph. D. in Curriculum, Teaching, and Educational Policy from Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan. She also holds a master's degree in reading from North Carolina A&T State University. Her professional and research interests include struggling adolescent readers and writers, adolescent response to young adult literature, multicultural literature, and diversity issues related to literacy curriculum and its impact on adolescents. Some of her publications include: Multicultural and multilingual literacy and language: Contexts and practices. (The Guilford Press), Principled practices for adolescent literacy: A framework for instruction and policy (Lawrence Erlbaum Associates), "Navigating a literacy landscape: Teaching conceptual understanding with multiple text types" (Journal of Literacy Research), "Web-based inquiry learning: Facilitating thoughtful literacy with webquest" (The Reading Teacher), and "Real teaching for real diversity: Preparing English language arts teachers for 21st century classrooms" (English Education).
Dr. William G. Brozo
"Closing the Reading Achievement Gap for Boys: Honoring Diversity and Building Capacity"
Dr. William G. Brozo is a Professor of Literacy in the Graduate School of Education at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of North Carolina and his master's and doctorate from the University of South Carolina. He has taught reading and language arts in junior and senior high school in the Carolinas. He is the author of numerous articles on literacy development for children and young adults. His books include To Be a Boy, To Be a Reader: Engaging Teen and Preteen Boys in Active Literacy (International Reading Association); Readers, Teachers, Learners: Expanding Literacy Across the Content Areas (Merrill/Prentice Hall); Content Literacy for Today's Adolescents: Honoring Diversity and Building Competence (Merrill/Prentice Hall); Principled Practices for Adolescent Literacy: A Framework for Instruction and Policy (Erlbaum); 50 Content Area Strategies for Adolescent Literacy (Merrill/Prentice Hall); and Setting the Pace: A Speed, Comprehension and Study Skills Program (Merrill). His newest books, Supporting Content Area Literacy with Technology: Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learners, and The Adolescent Literacy Inventory, are forthcoming by Allyn and Bacon. Dr. Brozo's research and scholarship interests include adolescent and content literacy; secondary literacy reform; struggling learners; and closing the literacy achievement gap for boys.
Patricia Powell, author and storyteller
Keynote Presentation
Patricia Hruby Powell is an author/storyteller/dancer who tells stories accented by dance and world-wide percussion instructions. She is the author of three picture books: Frog brings rain and Zinnia: How the corn was saved, bilingual (Navajo/English) tales, and Blossom stories: Flower stories of many folk. Patricia is on the Artstour and Arts-In-Education rosters of the Illinois Arts Council, and performs and conducts workshops extensively in Illinois and across the nation for audiences of all ages. She has also told stories and conducted workshops for the National Storytelling Conference, the Northlands Storytelling Conference, and the Illinois Storytelling Festival.