Campus News Society & Culture

UGA professor receives national award for best publication in literacy research

Smagorinsky
Peter Smagorinsky

Athens, Ga. – Peter Smagorinsky, a University of Georgia College of Education professor, received a national award for his 2011 book on literacy research during the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association in Philadelphia April 3-7.

Smagorinsky, a Distinguished Research Professor of English Education, received the 2014 Steve Witte Award from the AERA Writing and Literacies Special Interest Group for his book, “Vygotsky and Literacy Research: A Methodological Framework.”

Named in honor of Stephen P. Witte, the award is given biannually for the best publication in writing and literacy research. Witte was a leading scholar of writing theory and research and a founding editor of the journal Written Communication.

The book also won the 2013 David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English from the National Council of Teachers of English for most outstanding work of scholarship or research in language, literature, rhetoric, or pedagogy and learning, published during the previous five years.

Smagorinsky received UGA’s 2014 Service-Learning Research Excellence Award for another book he co-edited, “Service-Learning in Literacy Education: Possibilities for Teaching and Learning.” He was named an AERA Fellow in 2010.

Smagorinsky received his doctorate in English education from the University of Chicago.