Contact Seven Valleys:
2012 Teacher Consultants
Director: David Franke
David Franke is a Professor of English at SUNY Cortland and directs the Professional Writing Program there. He studies and teaches writing communities: college classrooms, the Seven Valleys Writing Project (obviously), a writing group for faculty on SUNY Cortland’s campus. His dissertation (Syracuse University, 1999) studies teachers as writers. If he didn’t study writing and the rhetoric, he would probably have been a farmer. Some of his favorite authors are Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry, and Billy Collins. His writing is almost exclusively bureaucratic, but also posts to a blog: http://davidtfranke.blogspot.com. His main genres are email, poetry and creative nonfiction.
Associate Directors:
Kathryn Cernera
7th grade English, DeWitt Middle School, Ithaca City School District
Kathryn has spent her entire teaching life in middle school, and hopes to never leave. In addition to her English teacher duties, she also heads the DeWitt Middle School drama program. This spring she will be working on her sabbatical: Writing to Learn in the Middle School Content Areas. She has been a 7vwp member since 2009, and has served as Associate Director since 2010. She blogs about her teaching and writing at: http://thriftyschoolmarm.blogspot.com
Todd Howell
Todd Howell will begin his fifteenth year as an English teacher this fall. In his real life, he is a father to his three children, husband to his awesome wife, and remodeler of the old house he bought from his parents. Recently his family painted their living room bright green. He currently teaches eighth-grade in the Lansing School District, and has been a teacher consultant for Seven Valleys Writing Project since 2008.
Danielle Sullivan
5th and 6th Grade Special Education Teacher, Candor Elementary School
Danielle.Sullivan@7VWP.com, or dsullivan@candor.org
Danielle Sullivan is a 5-6 special education teacher in Candor Central School District. She has been a teacher for 6 years. In her previous life, she worked in state and local politics and has a passion for educational reform. She is especially interested in creating collaborative partnerships in the inclusion classroom. She joined the Seven Valleys Writing Project in 2010 and serves as the Associate Director and Professional Development Coordinator.
Technology Liaison:
Michael Brewster
Michael Brewster writes and teaches writing. He has taught in a large urban high school and a tiny rural Junior-Senior high school. Most recently he is in the process of opening a restaurant.
He recognizes that in writing this autobiography he is no Ulysses S. Grant or even David McCullough. His passion lies in narrative and how it relates to teaching. He always takes the high road.
June Bedore
June Bedore teaches second grade at South Seneca Central School. She has been teaching for 20 years and counting. She is also a proud parent to two adult sons. She is certified in elementary education k-6, K-12 reading, 7-12 English, and middle school language arts. She wants to be a geologist when she grows up.
Nancy Lovell
Nancy teaches reading and writing to elementary students within the Ithaca City School District, at Caroline Elementary School. It’s a good thing that the bike ride to this school is downhill and passes by lots of flower gardens. Work during the 2011 Summer Institute inspired Nancy to begin using writing in different ways, both personally and with children. This quote begins to talk about this…
Writing, to me, is simply thinking through my fingers.
Gloria Kilpatrick
Gloria Matthews Kilpatrick has been a math teacher in the Syracuse City School District for 19 years. She has taught all grades 7-12 and is presently teaching middle school 7th and 8th graders. She is currently working on a novel, and is thrilled to share her writing to learn math experience with her students.
Angela Martinez
Angela has been an elementary teacher, reading teacher and literacy coach. She has returned to the classroom and is very happy to be teaching at West Middle School in Binghamton, New York. Angela is looking forward to working as a teacher consultant for seven valleys. Angela says, “I’d like to help teachers see themselves as writers”. Writing to learn has become such a powerful teaching strategy for Angela. She is very excited about the impact writing can have on student learning.
Amy Riemenschneider
Amy Riemenschneider is a third grade teacher in the Fayetteville-Manlius School District. She enjoys the daily laughter teaching brings. Amy joined 7vwp because it sounded interesting; she had a boring summer planned until she heard about the writing project from a colleague, and she never finds the time to write.
Kim Sweeney
Kim works as a seventh grade social studies teacher at Lansing Middle School. She loves teaching social studies and is interested in helping her students read and write across the curriculum. She is also the social studies building curriculum leader for the middle school. In her spare time Kim enjoys volunteering for the Lansing Fire Department as a firefighter and EMT.
Lyndsey Weiner
Lyndsey teaches little kids how to read, and she’s a graduate student at SUNY Cortland. She loves to write, and has “won” NaNoWriMo four times (every time she started it). She makes bread, and her husband makes cheese. She also has a donkey named J-Lo.
2010 Teacher Consultants
Joanne Church
Joanne discovered her niche when she started working in the DeWitt Middle School library in 1991 as a library clerk. She received her Masters in Library Science from Syracuse University in 2001, and returned to DeWitt as the teacher librarian in 2005. Starting with Summer Institute 2010, her ongoing work with 7VWP has inspired her to find new ways to collaborate with teachers to help students learn through writing.
Savanna Kucerak
Savanna Kucerak’s aspiration as a child was to be the youngest published author ever. Although that didn’t quite happen, her love of words led her to a career in English and Literacy education. She currently teaches at Homer High School and will be starting her fourth year of teaching in Fall 2011. She also advises Student Government and chaperones Ski Club during the winter. She became a Seven Valleys Writing Project TC in 2010.
Andy Blaine
Owego-Appalachin Central School District, Secondary English
Colleen Miles
Auburn Central School District, Kindergarten
Amoreena Tellaeche
Cortland Central School District, Elementary Math
Amanda Triplett
Cortland Central School District, Writing Studio
Michelle Whalen
Secondary English
2009 Teaching Consultants
Nick Bessette
Union Springs Central School District, Secondary English
Tina Conklin
Chenango Forks Central School District, English 6-8
Joe Cortese
Joe teaches European, American, and military history, government, and economics at Homer Senior High School. His students use up many pens and pads of paper in his courses. Joe is a second-career teacher; he managed his family’s restaurant in Binghamton for a first career. He’s most proud of his hands-on projects for Economics and Government, and of the way his students do what seems beyond them. Joe lives in Homer, since he believes in living among the families whose children he teaches.
Deb Kisloski
Secondary English
Sarah Marcham
Dryden Central School District, Elementary AIS
Jerry Masters
WFL BOCES, Secondary English
Marilyn Mayer
Ithaca Central School District, Grade 5
Deb Rielly
Auburn Central School District, Secondary English
2008 Teacher Consultants
Karen Brey
Windsor Central School District, Secondary English
Josh Borthwick
Former Ithaca City School District, Secondary Social Studies
Wendy Cremeens
Lansing Central School District, AIS 6-8
Brian Fay
Liverpool School District, Alternative to Homebound
Jacqueline Franke
Jacqueline has nine years experience teaching a wide range of students – from at-risk high schoolers at Broome-Tioga BOCES to college sophmores at SUNY Oneonta. She believes that all students can learn through the power of writing. Her primary academic interests include authentic achievement and critical media literacy. She is currently working with the National Writing Project and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to connect the Common Core Standards to solid professional development that will empower teachers and students.
Pam Horton
Pam has been teaching for more than 25 years; starting at the elementary level, moving to middle school, on to the high school and professional development and now back to 2nd grade and Literacy Coaching! She also spends time coaching volleyball! She has been a 7vwp member since 2008.
Anne Marie Hyman
Tully Central School District, Elementary AIS
Shannon Maxson
Lansing Central School District, English 9
Carol Mikoda
Carol Mikoda is a Harpur Writing Instructor at Binghamton University and an adjunct lecturer at SUNY Oneonta in the Adolescence Education program. After twenty-three years of teaching literacy in public schools, the last fifteen with eighth graders in the Windsor School District, she returned to the university to study for her doctorate. For her dissertation, she is studying the transition students make from high school writing to college writing. As a musician, she can’t decide which instrument (piano? violin? guitar?) or genre (classical? folk? blues?) to focus on. Her haikus appear on her Facebook page, her essays on her blog (www.starwatchersguide.blogspot.com), and her poems on her yellow table in the den.
Ann Moore
Secondary Science,
Eric Pritz
Ithaca City School District, Social Studies 7
Allison Star
Maine Endwell Central School District, Elementary AIS
Derek Villnave
Secondary English- Alternative
2007 Teacher Consultants
OCM-BOCES, Alternative to Homebound Program
https://plus.google.com/u/0/115031344911656496504/posts?hl=en