Critical Reading, Critical Thinking: Focusing on Contemporary Issues

Critical Reading, Critical Thinking uses compelling contemporary issues to engage students in reading and thinking about a range of relevant topics and encourages them to apply the skills presented in the text to everyday issues. Each passage or reading is followed by thought-provoking questions that motivate students to use higher-level thinking strategies to address or respond to the issue.

 

            Dr. Gretchen Starks-Martin is a professor emerita at St. Cloud State University in Minnesota and a part-time professor of reading/writing at the College of St. Benedict in Collegeville, MN and online at Bethel University in Nashville, TN.  She has taught reading in middle school in Michigan before teaching reading at the technical college, community college, and university levels in Minnesota and New York.  She was involved in a NY State Learning Disabilities Teacher Training Grant and in National Institute for Literacy Learning Disabilities training. She is a certified online evaluator for Quality Matters, which certifies online courses at the college level. She has co-authored a textbook, “Critical Reading, Critical Thinking: Focusing on Contemporary Issues,” which is in its 4^th edition for Pearson Education. In 2009 she received a Fulbright Specialist Scholarship to South Africa, focusing on literacy. She has served on the Minnesota State College and University Committee on Assessment of College Readiness and on a team evaluating “First Generation Student Programs” for the Institute of Higher Education Policy in Washington, D.C.  Currently she is a QEP Evaluator for the Southern Commission on Colleges and conducts internal and external reviews and training workshops in reading and writing.

 

Julie Dziewisz  

Teacher, Reading Consultant, Adjunct instructor in Masters Reading program, Director of Language Arts/Compensatory Education, Assistant Superintendent, Independent Educational Consultant, Assistant Professor

 

Julie has presented at several conferences and seminars in the field of reading, educational administration, library media, technology and TESOL.

She has been an active member in several local, state, and national organizations in the field of reading, educational administration, library, ESOL, technology and curriculum instruction.

 

Julie was the recipient of the NYS TESOL James Lydon Distinguished Service Award at the 2011 NYS TESOL annual conference, for her 10 year service as a NYS TESOL Executive Board Member and Idiom Editor.

 

Her work in northern New York State earned her special awards and recognition for programs-she supervised in the late ‘90s:

·   She was presented the Beatrice E. Griggs Elementary Administrator Award –presented at New York State School Library Media Section Annual Conference

·   District recognition in national publication for exemplary practices and policies in technology- “Making Technology Happen”

·   State and National recognition of ESOL program as exemplary program through National Research Center on English Language Learning and Achievement, University at Albany