“You have no idea how relieved I was to experience your opening lesson. Every activity you prepared and shared can be adapted to real grade school classrooms. Classes like yours promise true professional development, preparing educators like myself to actually help actual students in actual classrooms. You said you run your class like a PD workshop, and for this I am grateful and excited. Sure, I can teach students how to write a killer social studies DBQ essay or an AP change-over-time essay, but teaching writing solely to the formulas of state exams and standards will turn me into the same type of teacher that left me exiting high school without a clue of how to write because I want to, and not just because I had to” ~Fairfield University Graduate Student
As the director for the Connecticut Writing Project~Fairfield University, my primary interests are with secondary school writing, teaching adolescent literature, working with students traditionally marginalized by American education, using creative writing for critical thinking, 21st Century digital literacies, and establishing professional development for best practices in writing instruction through district-wide writing plans.
For many years I was a high school English teacher at the J. Graham Brown School in Louisville, Kentucky. The Brown was the only k – 12 public school in Jefferson County and we shared a mission of diversity and self-directed learning as we celebrated individuality and the importance of building community. My students (the Class of 1998 to the Class of 2007) were phenomenal mentors who taught me the importance of teaching to the unique learning styles of every child. Drawing two kids from each of twenty-five zip codes established a pastiche of learners. We did not track at our school, remained on a first-name basis to sustain relationships, and kept standards high for all.
This online location is a professional space for maintaining the work I do in the ever-changing world of literacy, K-12 schooling, and research, (hence the Mecological Sustainability title). The work showcased on this website culminates from many educational and professional experiences in schools and as the Director of the Connecticut Writing Project at Fairfield. It brings together a B.A. in English Literature from Binghamton University, a M.A.T. in English Education from the University of Louisville, an M.S. from KIESD, work with the Bread Loaf School of English and the Louisville Writing Project, and additional learning experiences at Cambridge University in England, the Roskilde Lile Skole in Denmark, a Fulbright Memorial Exchange in Japan, doctoral work at Syracuse University, and teacher leadership at Fairfield University.
Above are pages that highlight the work I do as a researcher/teacher and to the right are links important to the communities I belong to. Each has been created to bring light to my professional goals, current work, and previous accomplishments. This location is one way to meet me as an educator, researcher, and scholar in action, and I welcome your comments and feedback to better help me on what it is I am trying to communicate.
Best,
Bryan Ripley Crandall Feel free to Email me
PS: Mecological Sustainability can be translated into multiple languages. Simply copy the address to this site, click on the GOOGLE sign here and paste the site’s URL in the open box. Google Translator will do the rest!
Bryan Ripley Crandall 