| Cheryl and the department take the mission very seriously as they work towards improving our schools for students and teachers. Cheryl teaches courses on literacy focusing on literacy in the content areas, as well as, in the English language arts classroom. She has presented widely on the literacy habits of writers in the motorcycle community with her dissertation, From Easy Rider to Easy Writer: An Examination of Non-traditional Writers and Their Road to Literacy. She also has presented on content area literacy and professional writing retreats.Cheryl is deeply concerned about the teaching writing in our schools. She is a firm believer that literacy is social and cultural and that test prompts will not accurately reflect a students’ writing ability nor will it motivate them to use writing as a tool for communication, learning, and thinking. She also interested in the use of graphic novels and digital storytelling in the classroom in hopes that we will teach literacy in a more responsive way.
At UMBC, Cheryl is a member of the Writing in the Disciplines board and is concerned about literacy learning. So much so, that Nancy Shelton and she helped facilitate faculty writing retreats. She is also on the Scholarship and Student Honors Day Committees because she enjoys recognizing UMBC students for the great things that they do. Her collaboration also extends nationally with her work with several members of the National Writing Project and their local affiliate, the Maryland Writing Project. |
