Sacramento Presenters

Adele Arellano is a professor in the Teaching Credential Single Subject program at CSU Sacramento preparing secondary teachers to teach in diverse California classrooms. She has been active in ERWC and has directed two National Professional Development grants focused on preparing students to be college and career ready. 

Debra Boggs has been in education for nearly 30 years, and involved in ERWC for almost 20. She is the former State Liaison for ERWC and currently works as an ELA/ELD Coordinator for the Merced County Office of Education.

Nicole Bulich has been teaching for fourteen years, and most recently at Pacific Grove High School, where she has taught virtually every variation of high school English for the past nine years. She introduced the 12th grade ERWC class to PGHS, where it is now a robust program going into its ninth year. She has a BA in English and Art History from UC Berkeley, and a MA in Education, with a focus on the teaching of English, from Stanford University.

Jason Burita has taught high school seniors for 20 years, 17 of those at Bret Harte High School in Angels Camp, CA. He has a M.Ed. in Curriculum & Instruction/Applied Behavior Analysis from ASU. He has used ERWC in his classroom since its inception. He has twin boys who will be taking his class next year, and he expects them to be his harshest critics.

Robby Ching is Professor Emerita from the CSUS English Department and a founding member of the ERWC Task Force. Her recent work has focused on developing ERWC-ELD curriculum and professional learning for grades 6-12.

John R. Edlund is professor emeritus (currently retired) in the English and Modern Languages Department at Cal Poly Pomona. He chaired the task force that created the ERWC in 2003 and served on the Steering Committee from 2004-2018.

Jennifer Fletcher is a Professor of English at California State University, Monterey Bay, where she coordinates the undergraduate program for future English teachers. Her twenty-eight years of experience in education include a decade as a high school teacher. The author of _Teaching Arguments_ (2015), _Teaching Literature Rhetorically_ (2018), and _Writing Rhetorically_ (2021), Jennifer facilitates workshops and webinars on rhetorical literacy skills for teachers across the country and is a frequent speaker at conferences. She serves as a curriculum developer, workshop leader, and steering committee chair for California State University’s Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum (ERWC), a nationally recognized rhetoric-based literacy initiative. Jennifer tweets @JenJFletcher and blogs at rhetoricalthinking.com.

Joseph Isquierdo is an English and ELD teacher at Kerman High School. He currently teaches ERWC 11, serves as an EL Site Lead, and is working on his Master’s Degree in Educational Leadership and Administration.

Carol Jago is a long-time high school English teacher, past president of NCTE, associate director of the California Reading and Literature Project and a member of the International Reading Association executive board. She can be reached at cjago@caroljago.com

Christy Kenny-Kitchin is an English teacher at Buena Park High School where she has also served as a Literacy Coach and Curriculum Specialist. She has taught English at the middle school, high school, and college levels. Having written one of the i3 modules ("The Daily Challenge"), she also worked as an academic coach to teachers for the i3 grant. Christy has been leading ERWC professional learning workshops for a decade.

Karen Koss has been a RWS lecturer at San Diego State University for the past four years. In addition to being a co-coordinator of the RWS Writing Mentors program, she is the co-project director of the NEH grant initiative that focuses on creating expansive, more global approaches to teaching writing and rhetoric.
 

Karen Lopez has been teaching at William S. Hart High School since 1984 and has served as an ERWC Teacher Leader since the course's inception in 2006. She is the author of the Grade 11 Integrated/Designated ERWC module titled Chance Me: Recognizing Merit designed to prepare students for the CAASPP.

Frank Mata has been teaching for 19+ years. He is involved with racial and social justice work within CTA's cadre team and appointed member of their steering committee for racial justice advocacy. He was recently awarded the 2023 CTA Human Rights Peace & Justice award and also serves as the vice-chair of CTA state council's Civil Rights in Education committee. He is also a board member with CATE and leads their BIPOC affinity spaces. He is the proud father of Benjamin and Ivan, 10 and 6 years old.

Chris Street is a Professor of Secondary Education at Cal State Fullerton, where he has directed the master’s program in secondary education for two decades. Chris has taught English at the middle school, high school, and college levels. His research interests include how teachers and students develop writing identities and the teaching of reading and writing. Dr. Street serves on the statewide ERWC Steering Committee and authored the 12th grade module, Island Civilization. He presents and publishes on issues related to the ERWC, and he has been facilitating ERWC professional learning sessions for teachers since the inception of ERWC, 20 years ago. In this role, he has worked with hundreds of English teachers across California.

Norm Unrau taught high school for 25 years before taking a position in the Division of Curriculum and Instruction at CSU, Los Angles, from which he is now Professor Emeritus. He has been engaged in teaching and research on aspects of literacy for over 30 years and is co-editor of Theoretical Model and Processes of Literacy. He has created modules for ERWC, presented workshops, and currently serves on the Steering Committee.

April Parker, Ed.D. has been teaching ELA for 18 years in LAUSD. She has taught ERWC as well as journalism, AP Lit, Literary Analysis-BIPOC, and theatre arts. She holds a doctorate of Education from USC, master's in curriculum and design from CSUDH, and a bachelor's in psychology from CSULB. Her research and hot topics are aimed at social justice and culturally relevant classroom instruction.

Dr. Marcy Merrill is a professor of Language and Literacy at California State University, Sacramento, and serves as director of the College and Career Readiness Center at CSUS. Dr. Merrill taught high school English for 12 years before becoming a professor at CSUS, where she teaches graduate students and preservice English teachers and serves as the chair of the graduate program in Language and Literacy. Dr. Merrill has been a member of the leadership team for the Expository Reading and Writing Curriculum since 2005.

Alesya Petty has been an instructional faculty at San Jose State University since 2014 and an ERWC workshop leader since 2018. Alesya has taught a variety of courses from college preparation, ESL, and first-year composition to professional, technical, and research-based writing. Her professional engagements include numerous presentations and leadership positions for professional organizations and conferences.

Glen McClish is Professor and Chair of Rhetoric and Writing Studies at San Diego State University and currently serves on the ERWC Steering Committee. He is particularly interested in how arguments work (and often don't).

Jonathon Medeiros has been teaching and learning about Language Arts and rhetoric for 17 years with students on Kauaʻi, where he was born and raised on a farm near Makaleha. He and his students learn about curiosity, community, and place. They build deeper connections to each other and the places they live by being curious about where they live, the stories of those places, and then following those curiosities. Jonathon is the former director of the Kauaʻi Teacher Fellowship, a poet, essayist, and writes frequently about education, equity, and the power of curiosity. He believes that curiosity kills boredom and that if you change all of your mistakes or regrets, you’d erase yourself. He walks, paddles, surfs, and builds and enjoys spending time with his brilliant wife and daughters. @jonmedeiros or jonathonmedeiros.com

Jen Roberts, NBCT, teaches high school English and is the co-author of Power Up: Making the Shift to 1:1 Teaching and Learning. She blogs about the intersection of educational technology and literacy at LitandTech.com.

Rachel Nguyen has been teaching English Language Arts to students in the Sacramento region since 2006. She currently works with English and History teachers as a Teacher on Special Assignment in the San Juan Unified School District. She has Master's degree in Education in Language and Literacy at California State University, Sacramento, where she instructs the Academic Literacy course for secondary preservice teachers. Rachel is an ERWC Workshop Leader and served as a coach and module editor for the ERWC 3.0 adoption. Her recent classroom experiences with ERWC 3.0 led to the creation of the Bella Vista Writing Club in 2022. Follow her on Twitter @msschuyen

Christine Snyder, PhD, is a Research Associate at WestEd and the author of the new Grade 8 ERWC-ELD module titled “Growing Up Is…” At WestEd, her projects include providing technical assistance to CDE’s Multilingual Support Division through the Region 15 Comprehensive Center; collaborating with CDE and ETS to design trainings to accompany the upcoming release of the new interim ELPAC; and serving as project director for San Diego County Office of Education’s 2023-2024 professional learning project on culturally sustaining comprehensive ELD.

An Oregonian native and Stanford University graduate, Erin Matheson Ritchie now teaches high school English and coaches debate in Santa Cruz, California, where she works to empower students with rhetorical moves to amplify their voices in real-world contexts.