"On the Street Where You Live:
  Exploring Identity through Poetry and Prose"
 Summer Writing Camp

Teacher and Guest Writer/Speaker Biographies

Read up on the awe-inspiring faculty of teachers that we have recruited for this year's writing camp adventure. Along with our teachers, we also have a strong group of guest speakers and writers that will accompany us on our learning journeys.

Elaine Barreira (teacher) has been a certified English teacher for nine years, and is currently teaching English at Hiram High School in Paulding County. Having begun her career in Massachusetts, she has a Master of Arts degree in Professional Writing from the University of Massachusetts and is currently earning her Ed.S in Instructional Technology at the University of West Georgia. Ms. Barreira uses many activities and technologies in the classroom to help students become better writers. Through R.A.F.T.ing, reader roundtables, and writer workshops, students practice the art of writing and improve their skills. She is Hiram's resident grant writer and has been very successful in securing funds for her growing student library, constantly encouraging others to read. Elaine is also the mother of Nicholas, who is himself a budding writer.

Dr. Mimi Dyer (guest speaker) is the Director of the Academy of Mathematics, Science & Technology at Kennesaw Mountain High School. A former English and French classroom teacher and Instructional Lead Teacher, Mimi graduated from Duke University, received her Masters of Arts in Professional Writing from Kennesaw State University and her doctorate in Educational Leadership from Nova Southeastern University. She is also a National Board Certified Teacher in English/Language Arts.  Mimi is affiliated with the National Council of Teachers of English, the National Writing Project, the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, the American Studies Association, the International Society of Technology in Education, and the National Consortium of Specialized Secondary Schools of Math, Science & Technology. She is the recipient of a multi-year National Endowment for the Humanities grant and is the editor of two volumes, Writing America: Classroom Literacy and Public Engagement (Teachers College Press, 2004) and Writing Our Communities (NCTE and NWP, 2005). She is also featured in Making American Literatures in High School (NCTE, 2001).  Mimi has presented at over 20 national conferences on a variety of topics, including rigor and relevance, reading and writing across disciplines, technology integration, community studies, and performance curriculum.  Mimi enjoys scuba diving, boating, fishing, reading, cooking, traveling, and spending time with her children and grandchildren. She currently resides in Marietta, GA with her husband John and two very spoiled Weimaraner dogs.

Carol Fuller (teacher) is currently a drama teacher at McClure Middle School in Paulding County. Previously she directed an award-winning drama department at South Cobb High School. Being certified in both theatre and English, Carol's 22 years as an educator have afforded her many spectacular opportunities. She is a 1996 Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project fellow and a two-time winner of the Community Fiction Award from Clark Atlanta University. A Creative Writing graduate of the Newspaper Institute of New York, Carol was also the 2002 South Cobb High School Teacher of the Year. Being so closely associated with the Arts, she is an Affiliate Master Teacher with the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta and is a 2007-2008 Woodruff Center Arts in Education Leaders honoree.

I am John Johnston (cooperating teacher) a class teacher at Sandaig Primary in Glasgow. I was born in 1958 so if there is an age based digital divide I am on the wrong side of it. I've been teaching since 1991 and been at Sandaig since 1993, this hints at a lack of ambition. Before completing my pgce I worked for 6 years as a Carnivore keeper at Glasgow Zoo (now defunct). Prior to working at Sandaig I had never used a computer. At Sandaig I became interested in HyperCard, this lead me to create learning materials for pupils, discover mailing lists and develop a website to contribute to the HyperCard community and try (not with a lot of success) and sell some shareware.My interest in HyperCard developed into an interest in SuperCard and blogging about Supercard. My interest in web design lead me to create the school site, blogging lead me to starting the children blogging. At SETT I saw radiowaves and though, 'we can do that', so started Radio Sandaig. I play with web 2.0 and ict in the classroom nearly every day including weekends and holidays. (I have also created and maintain a few other websites).

Toni Michael (teacher) is a graduate of Kennesaw University. In 2007 she became a fellow of the Kennesaw Mountain Writing Project. Currently, Toni is teaching in the Ninth Grade Academy, a pilot program targeting incoming freshman, at Cherokee High School.

Born in 1980, Adam Selzer (guest writer) grew up in the suburbs of Des Moines and now lives in Chicago. He spent his teenage years and a chunk of his twenties working one nametag job after another, including Olympic parking lot greeter, grocery bagger, barista, waiter, busboy, office grunt, merchandiser, and retail clerk. As a pizza delivery man in Milledgeville, his rounds included seven prisons and a mental hospital that was once the largest such institution in the world. They did not tip well. Today, his only official job is as tour guide, historian and ghost investigator for Weird Chicago Tours. By day, he roams from coffee shop to coffee shop writing books - the first, How To Get Suspended and Influence People, was released in February, 2007 by Random House, and ended up on the Chicago Public Schools summer reading list, though a couple of smaller libraries actually banned it. It was followed by a sequel, Pirates of the Retail Wasteland, in 2008. Other future projects include I Put a Spell On You, a book about a spelling bee (which happens to be based on Watergate), Ghost Hunting for Skeptics (2009) and The Wisenheimer's Guide to U.S. History (2010), among several other projects. He is now just famous enough to have a page on wikipedia.
 

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