Alan Lawrence Sitomer is California's 2007 Teacher of the Year. In
addition to being an inner-city high school English teacher and
former professor in the Graduate School of Education at Loyola
Marymount University, Mr. Sitomer is a nationally renowned speaker
specializing in engaging reluctant readers who received the 2004
award for Classroom Excellence from the Southern California
Teachers of English and the 2003 Teacher of the Year honor from
California Literacy. In April 2007, Alan was named Educator of the
Year by Loyola Marymount University and in February 2008 The
Insight Education Group named Alan Lawrence Sitomer the Innovative
Educator of the Year.
Mr. Sitomer has also authored four young adult novels published by
Disney, which include The Hoopster, Hip-Hop High School, Homeboyz
and The Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez.
The American Library Association named Homeboyz a Top Ten Book of
the Year 2008, receiving the prestigious ALA Quick Pick Recognition
for young adult novel which best engages reluctant readers. The
Secret Story of Sonia Rodriguez was also been nominated for the
same award.
Alan is the author of Hip-Hop Poetry & the Classics, a text being
used in classrooms across the United States to illuminate classic
poetry through hip-hop in order to engage disengaged students in
both poetry and academics.
Additionally, Mr. Sitomer has just written a teacher's methodology
book for Scholastic titled Teaching Teens & Reaping Results: In a
Wi-Fi, Hip-Hop, Where-Has-All-The-Sanity-Gone World.
Most recently, Mr. Sitomer has authored The Alan Sitomer
BookJam.
BookJams have been designed to nail core language arts standards,
raise test scores, and return teachers to a position of strength.
By bringing real books back into the classroom through a
student-centric approach to learning in order to achieve core
curriculum objectives, teachers can utilize all the tools Alan
utilizes in his own classroom each and every day. BookJams are
literally "straight out of Alan's private filing cabinet" and
include a host of core, standards-based activities and lesson plans
as well as a dynamic spectrum of 21st-century, hands-on learning
projects. Intelligent grading rubrics, differentiated assessments
and award-winning literature are all included. Michael Cirelli is
the Executive Director of Urban Word NYC, an award-winning youth
literary arts organization, and also the author of Hip-Hop Poetry &
the Classics (Milk Mug 2004), a standards-based teaching curriculum
that engages the intersection between hip-hop and "classic" poetry.
His first collection of poems, Lobster with Ol' Dirty Bastard
(Hanging Loose, 2008), was a NY Times Best Seller for independent
presses. He is a veteran of the National Poetry Slam scene, and was
the only person to win the Grand Slam Finals in San Francisco,
Oakland and Berkeley all in the same year.
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