Applebee Award Honors Research on Alternative Ways to Shape English Language Arts Teaching

Albany, NY (December 17, 2024) – Four scholars were recognized with the Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Research on Literacy this year. Sarah Levine, Daniel P. Moore, Emma Bene and Michael W. Smith published “What if it Were Otherwise? Teachers Use Exams from the Past to Imagine Possible Futures in the Teaching of Literature” in Reading Research Quarterly. The article explores alternatives to using standardized tests to shape English Language Arts teaching. Alternatives allow for a broad exploration of the possibilities of language arts curriculum and instruction and of teachers’ own talents and imagination.

The Arthur Applebee Award for Excellence in Research on Literacy, made possible through a UAlbany endowment established in memory of Distinguished Professor Arthur Applebee, is given annually to honor an outstanding and influential article in literacy research published in a refereed journal in the previous calendar year.  It is the first international award offered by the University at Albany. The award was created through a partnership between the School of Education and the Literacy Research Association (LRA), the premier organization for literacy research.

Sarah Levine is assistant professor in Stanford’s Graduate School of Education. A former secondary English teacher in Chicago public schools, Levine’s research focuses on the teaching and learning of literary interpretation and writing in under-resourced urban high schools, with an emphasis on the links between in- and out-of-school interpretive practices. Daniel P. Moore and Emma Bene are doctoral candidates in Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and former secondary teachers. Moore’s research interests include literacy education, English education, culturally sustaining pedagogy, assessment, teacher education, and issues of educational equity. Bene is an experienced literacy specialist skilled in educational leadership, teaching, community outreach, tutoring, and curriculum development.

Michael W. Smith is a professor of teaching and learning in the College of Education and Human Development at Temple University. A former high school English teacher, his research and teaching have centered on how experienced readers read and talk about texts as well as on what motivates adolescents’ reading and writing both in and out of school.

Until his retirement in August 2015, Applebee was a SUNY Distinguished Professor in UAlbany’s School of Education, Chair of the School’s Department of Educational Theory & Practice, and Director of the Center on English Learning & Achievement. He joined the School of Education in 1987. With degrees from Yale, Harvard, and the University of London, Applebee’s work focused on how children and adults learn the many specialized forms of language required for success in school, life, and work. His research reframed the ways in which both scholars and practitioners think about critical issues in language learning by interconnecting reading, writing, speaking, thinking, and learning across disciplines. Since the early 1970s, he worked as an advisor to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, helping to design, implement, interpret, and report a continuing series of evaluations of the educational attainment of U.S. students.

He has an extraordinary record of academic accomplishment—countless students; 25 books and monographs; over 100 articles and other publications; leadership roles at all levels of education; editorial work; seminal texts in areas related to language, literacy, and learning; $27 million dollars in external funding; and designation as a Fellow of the American Educational Research Association—a highly selective honor by the premiere association for educational researchers in the world.