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Our faculty is a dynamic team of authors, classroom teachers, national consultants, parent leaders, and student interns who practice what they preach.
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Walloon 2008 features the following faculty members: (click their name to read their bio or scroll down the page for all)
 Samantha Bennett, That Workshop Book
Marilyn Bizar, Teaching the Best Practice Way and Rethinking High School
Harvey Daniels, Content-Area Writing and Mini-lessons for Literature Circles
Nancy Doda, Transforming Ourselves, Transforming Schools
Stephanie Harvey, The Comprehension Toolkit and Strategies That Work
Sara Holbrook, Practical Poetry
Paula Kluth, You're Welcome
Pete Leki, Ecology and Music Director
Patrick Schwarz, From Disability to Possibility and You're Welcome
Yolanda Simmons, Family Stories Across the Curriculum
Nancy Steineke, Reading & Writing Together and Mini-lessons for Literature Circles
Alfred Tatum, Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males
Jim Vopat, More Than Bake Sales and micro lessons in writing
Steve Zemelman, Subjects Matter and Content-Area Writing
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A former middle school teacher, Samantha Bennett is the instructional coach at the Rocky Mountain School of Expeditionary Learning and a staff developer with the Denver-based Public Education and Business Coalition. She works closely with teachers at her school and across the country to help them tap into the energy to teach and learn.
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Marilyn Bizar's newest book, School Leadership in Times of Urban Reform (Erlbaum) offers case studies of a dozen school-change situations in city schools, written by varied stakeholders: parents, teachers, principals, partners. Marilyn teaches at National-Louis University, directs NLU's Annenberg Challenge Project, and is helping to shape the University's innovative new secondary education program. Another of her best-selling books is Methods that Matter: Six Structures for Best Practice Classrooms (Stenhouse), which is being used as a template for instructional renewal by teachers in in New York City, Minneapolis, New Orleans, and around the country.
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Harvey "Smokey" Daniels, who founded the Walloon Institute in 1989, teaches at National-Louis University and directs the Best Practice Network of teacher and parent leaders in Chicago. A former city and suburban English teacher, Smokey has written eleven books, including the Mini-lessons for Literature Circles (Heinemann) and the second edition of Literature Circles: Voice and Choice in the Student-Centered Classroom, and its accompanying classroom videotape, Looking Into Literature Circles. Smokey and Marilyn Bizar also wrote Methods that Matter: Six Structures for Best Practice Classrooms (Stenhouse) as well as the videotape Rethinking High School with Steve Zemelman (Heinemann).
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Nancy Doda is one of the nation's top experts on middle-level education, curriculum integration, and developing meaningful advisory programs. You may have heard Nancy speak at National Middle School Association events, enjoyed her magazine articles, or used her book to grow teacher teams in your school. Nancy currently works in the Washington D.C. area, where she does teacher and school development projects in D.C, the suburbs, and districts around the country. Her book Team Organization: Promise, Practices and Possibilities was published by the National Education Association.
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Stephanie Harvey has spent her career teaching and learning about reading and writing. An elementary and special education teacher for fifteen years, she now works as a staff developer and educational consultant. The author of two books, Nonfiction Matters and Strategies That Work coauthored by Anne Goudvis, Steph works with educators, schools and districts to implement progressive literacy practices. In addition, Steph and Anne have created a number of video series that showcase thoughtful literacy instruction in classrooms around the country. Insatiably curious about student thinking, Steph is a teacher first and foremost and continues to work in schools on a regular basis savoring any time spent with kids.
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Poet Sara Holbrook is the author of eleven poetry books for children, teens and adults. She has performed for audiences across the US and abroad, for children and adults, in schools, teacher conferences, and bars and once in a boxing ring in Stockholm. According to acclaimed author and poet Jane Yolen, "she does not speak a poem or say a poem or even perform a poem, She sticks her hand down the poem's throat and pulls it inside out. She makes you laugh, cry, feel." Her poetry book for teens, Walking on the Boundaries of Change, won the Parent's Choice Award. She is the author of two poetry books for adults, Chicks Up Front (Cleveland State University Press) and Isn't She Ladylike, (Collinwood Media, distributed by Bottom Dog Press) and her work has been included many anthologies, including Slam and The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry and she appeared in the documentary SlamNation.
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Paula Kluth is the coauthor of the Heinemann title You're Welcome (2007). A leading independent scholar and consultant on the subjects of inclusive schooling, differentiated instruction, and autism, she is the author of "You're Going to Love This Kid": Educating Students with Autism in Inclusive Classrooms (2003) and the lead editor for Access to Academics: Critical Approaches to Inclusive Curriculum, Instruction, and Policy (with Doug Biklen and Diana Straut, 2003). Paula presents her findings and ideas for instruction in professional development settings nationwide.
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Pete Leki is the Chicago coordinator of the Parent Project, as well as a musician and environmentalist. In his official role, Pete works to facilitate deep and genuine parent involvement through workshops demonstrating Best Practice teaching and learning. At Walloon, Pete keeps us in touch with music and nature. Try the "Walk in the Woods with Pete" breakout session some afternoon or join us for homemade music late nights.
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Patrick Schwarz’s From Disability to Possibility (Heinemann, 2006) inspired teachers nationwide to reconceptualize inclusion in ways that help all children. His latest offering, You're Welcome (2007) presents classroom-ready lessons for implementing inclusion. He is Associate Professor of Special Education and Chair of Diversity in Learning and Development for National-Louis University, Chicago. Patrick is also a part-time human-services director for UCP Infinitec of Greater Chicago, in addition to presenting and consulting worldwide through Creative Culture Consulting.
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Yolanda Simmons taught English at Martin Luther King High School in Chicago, and coordinated the Perkins school-to-work project. Now Yolanda works at the Center for City Schools where she gives energizing and moving workshops on the family history project she co-developed with her sister, Pat Bearden. Under an Annenberg Challenge Grant, Yolanda also serves as a classroom consultant at Best Practice High School and coordinates the school's professional development and visitation programs.
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Nancy Steineke has taught 9–12 English at Victor J. Andrew High School in Tinley Park, Illinois, since 1984. She is the author of Mini-lessons for Literature Circles (Heinemann) and Reading & Writing Together: Collaborative Literacy in Action (Heinemann). In addition to giving outstanding workshops on classroom community, collaborative learning startegies, and readers' theatre, Nancy serves as Co-director of the Walloon Institute, organizing sessions, monitoring logistics and sparking social events.
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Alfred W. Tatum teaches in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Currently, he serves on the National Advisory Reading Committee of the National Assessment of Educational Progress. He provides professional development support to schools across the nation interested in addressing the literacy needs of students characterized as vulnerable, particularly African-American adolescent males. He has been published in nine journals including Reading Research Quarterly, The Reading Teacher, Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, Educational Leadership, The Journal of College Reading and Learning, and Principal Leadership, and is the author of Teaching Reading to Black Adolescent Males: Closing the Achievement Gap. Alfred Tatum began his career as an eighth-grade teacher in Chicago, later becoming a reading specialist. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois-Chicago.
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Jim Vopat, founder and director of the Milwaukee Writing Project, teaches writing and literature at Carroll College. He is coauthor of What Makes Writing Good (DC Heath & Co.) and author of The Parent Project (Stenhouse). A workshop approach to parent-teacher collaboration, The Parent Project was cited in President Clinton's "America Reads" Challenge as one of six parents as first teachers national models. An advocate for naïve art, Jim has organized major exhibitions of children's writing, drawing, painting, and sculpture. He was a Senior Fulbright Scholar in curriculum development to Sri Lanka from 1993–96 and currently directs the Midwest Parent Leadership Project. In summers, Jim is a faculty member of the Walloon Institute, where he leads workshops for progressive educators and parent leaders from around the country.
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Steve Zemelman directs the Center for City Schools at National-Louis University and co-directs the Illinois Writing Project. His books include Subjects Matter (Heinemann), Best Practice: New Standards for Teaching and Learning in America's Schools, upon which the Best Practice High School is now taking shape in Chicago, A Community of Writers, and A Writing Project: Training Teachers of Composition from K-College (Heinemann). He wrote History Comes Home: Family Stories Across the Curriculum with fellow Wallooners Pete Leki, Pat Bearden and Yolanda Simmons (Stenhouse). He also coauthored, with Smokey and Marilyn, Rethinking High School: Best Practice in Teaching, Learning and Leadership (Heinemann) and its accompanying videotape, Best Practice in Action.
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Faculty chorus sings for its supper at 2003 Walloon Instutute closing dinner.
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