About the Author

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.