2005 Honorees

Susan Ashmann, 3rd grade teacher
Gladstone Elementary School
Chicago, Illinois

"Teachers have been known to give "yes" or "no" answers to students when discussing stories. Through JGB teachers learn to become moderators, guiding students to defend their personal positions without commenting on it. This has really changed my teaching in all curriculum areas—allowing students to practice their thinking skills without always voicing my opinion."

James Centonze, 4th grade teacher
Gardiners Avenue School
Levittown, New York

"One of my favorite JGB moments was when an inclusion student added a thought during a Shared Inquiry discussion. The student was very shy. The class was very receptive to his comment and he felt proud."

Tracey Chavous, 1st–5th grade teacher
Jackson Road Elementary School
Rockville, Maryland

"Junior Great Books has become the Foundation for an enrichment program at my school. It has brought awesome literature into tiny hands and encouraged creativity as well as critical thinking."

Kevin Donovan, 6th–7th grade teacher
Fairfield Woods Middle School
Fairfield, Conneticut

"I use Junior Great Books because of the ideas: ideas buried inside every story waiting for my kids and I to discover and explain and explore. They are ideas that come only through the hard work of reading and re-reading and writing and discussion. JGB stories can push my students to do that hard work and experience the genuine excitement that comes from interpreting text and connecting ideas. As a teacher, I find myself, as most of my colleagues do as well, learning something new each time I teach with a story no matter how many times before I have read it. The stores are always fresh and new."

J. Gaye Durham, K–5th grade teacher
Rocky River Elementary
Concord, North Carolina

"Junior Great Books changed me and the way I question and wonder about literature. I am also able to carry this into other subjects so my level of thinking has been heightened and I am able to pass this along to my students."

Ynetta Eckert, 4th grade teacher
Buckhorn Elementary School
Buckhorn, Kentucky

"Ynetta took on the extra work to involve her students in the Buckhorn/Bronx Junior Great Books project which partnered her fourth grade class with a fourth-grade class in the Bronx, New York. Using the Internet, Junior Great Books stories, and exchanging letters, she helped her students break down stereotypes, expand their understanding of the literature they read, and deepen their love of exchanging ideas"

Fred Hang, Foundation instructor
Buckhorn Elementary School consultant

Vicky Figueroa, 4th grade teacher
CS 134
Bronx, New York

"My favorite Junior Great Books moments are when my students discuss the stories' characters and elements with intensity and conviction. I can only refer to them as being passionate about their literature. I also enjoy the moments when the students help one another to have a clearer understanding of the text as a whole or a part of it. Then, I hear those glorious five words, 'Oh, Now I get it!'"

Earlene Harris, K–12 teacher
Junior Great Books/CSR , CS 161
Bronx, New York

"Earlene has played an essential role in the successful Junior Great Books implementation at CS 161. She is the ideal of what an on-site Junior Great Books coordinator should be—a lifelong learner, ceaseless dedication to children’s learning, and an amazing storyteller. Earlene goes out of her way to help the teachers implement the program in the classroom and even started a monthly shared inquiry discussion group for teachers."

Fred Hang, Foundation Instructor
CS 161 consultant

Vicki Lubkeman, 4th grade teacher
Cleveland Elementary School
Washington, DC

"Vicki is an experienced and deeply committed teacher whose passion is to serve the most under-privleged minority children of Washington, DC. Her classroom pays testimony to her creative efforts to create a truly holistic learning environment. In her classroom there is that rare sense of community built with each student facing high expectations and responsibility for their own learning. I have watcher her connect with students, having to move between the roles of foster parent, nurse, social worker, authoritarian, advocate, collaborative learner, and muse and she does it with grace and grit. Vicki needs to be acknowledged and championed for her outstanding work in one of the toughest districts the Foundation serves."

Susan Galbraith, Foundation instructor
DCPS/Great Books Model Schools Project consultant

Shanti Kudva, literacy specialist
Dana Elementary School
Dana, North Carolina
 
"Junior Great Books incorporates the three major components of meaningful instruction that should be included in every lesson plan: maintaining high expectations, providing effective instruction for success, and promoting self-confidence among learners."

Ann Kuhlman, 4th grade teacher
Gladstone Elementary School
Chicago, Illinois

"Junior Great Books isn't just one more thing to add to our busy day. My students cheer and clap when it's JGB day!"

Gina Messina, 8th grade teacher
James Monroe Elementary School
Chicago, Illinois

"Junior Great Books generates personal experiences, and insights, which motivates and strengthens students' passion to become lifelong readers. It brings out their best individual abilities."

Enda Otero, 1st grade teacher
Andrew Jackson Language Academy
Chicago, Illinois

"Every year my students' parents tell me how much they look forward to Tuesday (the day we start a new story) to work with their child. They say they learn so much about interpreting the story, and they are surprised when their child tells them they disagree with what they think about the story and can show them in the text why they disagree."


Richard Weldon, 10–12th grade teacher
St. Francis High School
Sacramento, California

"JGB and Shared Inquiry have radically changed my approach to teaching literature. Now I lecture only occasionally—the great majority of my classes are seminars—in which the "real" teachers are the authors of the literary work themselves. I feel much more as if I am learning with my students (rather than "dispensing" knowledge). In a way, this program has strengthened my belief that great things happen when students are invited to think?"

Tricia Wynne, 4th grade teacher
CS 161
Bronx, New York

"I am very grateful to JGB for helping me to become a better teacher. I like the literature and the thinking questions that follow. It's been a wonderful experience and I'm excited to do even more with it."