Athens, Ga. – University of Georgia graduate student Amy Alexandra Wilson has been named a 2009 Adolescent Literacy Predoctoral Fellow by the National Academy of Education.
She is one of just 10 doctoral students in the country selected to receive a stipend of $25,000 over the next two years to support the completion of her dissertation.
Wilson, from Murray, Utah, is a third-year student in the College of Education’s department of language and literacy education. Her dissertation is titled, Teaching as Text Designing in the Content Areas: An Examination of Secondary Teachers’ Texts and Principles for Design. She got the idea for this project from a previous study she had conducted in middle school classrooms.
“My professors at UGA have been outstanding teachers and advocates. It is because of their mentorship that I was able to apply for and receive this grant,” Wilson said. “I am thankful for them and hope to be able to ‘pay it forward’ someday by following their example of service to students.”
Wilson cited her major professor, Donna Alvermann, a UGA DistinguishedResearch Professor and two more professors in language and literacy education-Peter Smagorinsky and James Marshall-for their mentorship and guidance.
Wilson earned her master’s degree in teacher education from Brigham Young University and her bachelor’s degree in English and history with a teacher certification from Westminster College in Salt Lake City, Utah. She says she chose UGA to seek her doctorate because she was so impressed with the professors.
The Adolescent Literacy Predoctoral Fellowship was created in 2007 with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York.