Over the last twenty years, I’ve worked with over one-hundred schools and organizations to develop high quality curricula that serves K-12 readers and writers. I’ve served as an instructional coach, led district-wide shifts to standards based grading and reporting, and facilitated assessment design and data analysis work that influences performance improvement. I’ve also served as a keynote speaker for many events, hosted single-day workshops, and led visioning and strategic planning sessions.
I design experiences that happen face to face, in the company of teachers inside of your schools, universities, and classrooms. I also have significant experience designing and implementing distance, blended, and hybrid learning experiences. I customize every initiative, timeline, and the tools that I use to meet the needs of the people that I serve. As you consider the options below, know that any of them can be facilitated in whatever way makes sense for you.
I would love to support the growth of literacy in your school as you work to implement promising instructional practices, design curriculum, improve assessment pedagogy, or shift toward standards-based grading.
These practices complement one another, and the work of one often illuminates tensions and needs inside the other. I find that it’s important for literacy consultants to have deep expertise in each of these areas, in order to create coherent and productive professional learning experiences that improve performance.
Let's talk more if you agree.
I enjoy designing inventive spaces for young writers and the teachers who support them. Are you ready to integrate design thinking, making, and writing in general education classes or already established makerspaces? I can help you build the right environment, design your program, and cultivate the best mindset, values, and habits. I can even support the launch of your new space by teaching, coaching, or training staff.
I founded a writing studio of my own in 2008, and it’s still thriving today. I’ve also built studios in store fronts like the one you see here, in rented and temporary spaces, and inside of schools, classrooms, and community centers.
Businesses and nonprofit agencies look to craft powerful narratives about their learning and work in order to call people to action and inspire organizational improvement. Documenting your own learning, inviting your colleagues to do the same, and using multimedia to lift your story and share it with others is essential to building and sustaining your vision.
Much of my own success as a small business owner has much to do with living in alignment with my own vision.
You don't need a million followers to make an incredible impact. You don't need them to thrive financially, either.
Eager to explore other possibilities? I’d love to work with you.
New York State Master Teacher Program, SUNY Binghamton
St. Bonaventure University, New York, USA
Schenectady City School District, New York, USA
Shenendehowa Central School District, New York, USA
Brentwood Union Free School District, New York, USA
Maryvale Central School District, New York, USA
Lyndonville Central Schools, New York, USA
Lancaster Central School District, New York, USA
Lake Shore Central School District, New York, USA
King Center Charter School, New York, USA
Halton District School Board, Ontario, Canada
Griffith Woods School, Calgary, AB
Exupery International School, Latvia
Erie 2 BOCES, New York, USA
Ellison Elementary School, Kelowna, BC
Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium, Canada
Grand Island Central School District, New York, USA
Frontier Central School District, New York, USA
Fredonia Central School District, New York, USA
Enterprise Charter School, New York, USA
City of Dunkirk Schools, New York, USA
D’Youville University School of Pharmacy, New York, USA
Drew Charter School, Georgia, USA
Depew Union Free School District, New York, USA
Cleveland Hill Central School District, New York, USA
Clarence Central School District, New York, USA
City of Lockport Schools, New York, USA
Cheektowaga Central School District, New York, USA
Chappaqua Central School District, New York, USA
Central Okanagan Public Schools (SD No.23), Kelowna, BC
Cattaraugus-Little Valley Central Schools, New York USA
Canandaigua Central School District, New York, USA
Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES, New York, USA
Brighton Central School District, New York, USA
Amherst Central School District, New York, USA
Allendale Columbia School, New York, USA
Alden Central School District, New York USA
Alberta School Learning Commons Council, Canada
Akron Central School District, New York, USA
David Mastronardi and the Gamestorming Group
Cal State ERWC EIR Grant-Funded Curriculum Design Project
The Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project
Akron Central School District, New York, USA
Alberta School Learning Commons Council, Canada
Alden Central School District, New York USA
Allendale Columbia School, New York, USA
Amherst Central School District, New York, USA
Brentwood Union Free School District, New York, USA
Brighton Central School District, New York, USA
Cal State ERWC EIR Grant-Funded Curriculum Design Project
Canandaigua Central School District, New York, USA
Cattaraugus-Allegany BOCES, New York, USA
Cattaraugus-Little Valley Central Schools, New York USA
Central Okanagan Public Schools (SD No.23), Kelowna, BC
Chappaqua Central School District, New York, USA
Cheektowaga Central School District, New York, USA
City of Dunkirk Schools, New York, USA
City of Lockport Schools, New York, USA
Clarence Central School District, New York, USA
Cleveland Hill Central School District, New York, USA
David Mastronardi and the Gamestorming Group
Depew Union Free School District, New York, USA
Drew Charter School, Georgia, USA
D’Youville University School of Pharmacy, New York, USA
Edmonton Regional Learning Consortium, Canada
Ellison Elementary School, Kelowna, BC
Enterprise Charter School, New York, USA
Erie 2 BOCES, New York, USA
Exupery International School, Latvia
Fredonia Central School District, New York, USA
Frontier Central School District, New York, USA
Grand Island Central School District, New York, USA
Griffith Woods School, Calgary, AB
Halton District School Board, Ontario, Canada
King Center Charter School, New York, USA
Lake Shore Central School District, New York, USA
Lancaster Central School District, New York, USA
Lyndonville Central Schools, New York, USA
Maryvale Central School District, New York, USA
New York State Master Teacher Program, SUNY Binghamton
Schenectady City School District, New York, USA
Shenendehowa Central School District, New York, USA
St. Bonaventure University, New York, USA
The Pennsylvania Writing and Literature Project
I grew up in Pendleton, New York on the banks of the Erie Canal. Tucked far off the road, our house stood at the end of a long, winding driveway made for roller skating and racing my yellow banana seat bicycle down the hill and around the loop. My days were spent skipping stones with neighborhood friends. Many evenings were spent reading in the quiet of my room, which overlooked the water.
This is where I became a reader.
Monthly trips to our local library were a special treat. I’d load up on books and scurry home to devour them, finishing each one long before our next visit. Empty handed and impatient, I started crafting my own stories in order to fill the void.
This is how I fell in love with writing.
Words served me well as a sensitive kid, an angsty adolescent, and a young woman determined to do good work for the right reasons. The first story that I wrote was about Maria Tallchief, America’s first major prima ballerina and the first Native American to possess that role. It was composed on my basement floor, which I turned into a makeshift dance studio. I was wearing a leotard that was too big and an itchy purple tutu that was too small. Both were remnants of my first recital. My most recent story was about my great grandmother, who came to the United States alone at the age of 15. I wrote it with my students’ help during our last writing workshop session, and then I published it in our local paper.
I became a teacher because I had good teachers, and children are some of the best.
I spent twelve years in the classroom and some time as a regional literacy specialist before becoming an independent professional learning facilitator in 2008. Over the last two decades, I’ve lead complex system-wide curriculum and assessment design initiatives, the shift to standards based grading and reporting, sustained lesson studies, and the practice of pedagogical documentation in elementary, middle, and high schools in hundreds of systems within and beyond the United States. I’m a dedicated action researcher whose interests lie at the intersection of purposeful play, collaborative inquiry, multimodal expression, and culturally sustaining practices. Each of my books is a chapter in this great learning story that continues to compel–and yes–confound me.
This has been hard and humbling work.
And I’m grateful if you’re a part of it. These days find me facilitating assessment design and documentation cycles in several western New York school districts, crafting professional learning experiences for educators involved in the New York State PLAN Pilot, bringing multimodal composition, tinkering, and play into writing workshops internationally, and teaching in the Daemen University Department of Education.
It’s storytelling that reminds us of who we are and why our work really matters, though.
I love listening to the stories that people of all ages share with me. I’m passionate about studying how they approach the writing process as well. I’ve learned a great deal by standing on the shoulders of giants, but I’ve learned much more by peering over the shoulders of the learners that I support. I’m serious about this kind of action research, and my work here never ends.
I’ve shared the best of my most recent findings in each of my books. My most recent, The Writing Teacher’s Guide to Pedagogical Documentation, was endorsed by Dr. John Hattie and named a 2024 Choice Outstanding Academic Title by the American Library Association. This is further validation that it isn’t what we know but perhaps–how we come to know it and who we call our teachers–that matters most.
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