Who Are We?

We are Teacher Consultants in the North Star of Texas Writing Project--a local site of the National Writing Project (http://www.nwp.org). We work with diverse learners in a range of contexts, and we are committed to working and playing together as we pursue complex and challenging literacy goals for our students and for ourselves. 
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Like other literacy educators across the U.S., we face overwhelming challenges. We try to comply with bureaucratic mandates, even though those mandates often work against authentic and supportive literacy practices for our students. We continue this work in spite of strong influences beyond our control--standardization and high stakes testing, budget shortfalls, immigration, poverty, mental health issues, economic instability in families, violence, political polarization, racism, sexism, and more. We work as professionals who continually balance our teaching duties with our responsibilities in graduate school, our communities, and our families. We work to stay healthy and productive, and we try to have fun along the way! ​

Director, Dr. Carol Wickstrom

After teaching in K-12 public schools for 25 years, Dr. Carol Wickstrom became a university faculty member in 2000. At UNT, she teaches literacy courses at the graduate and undergraduate level in the Language, Literacy, Bilingual and ESL Program. As Director of the North Star of Texas Writing Project, she studies Culturally Mediated Writing Instruction in grades 6-12 English/Language Arts classrooms and supports teachers in these classrooms in their own teacher research. She received the 2009-2010 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award from the UNT College of Education, the 2011 Jean Greenlaw Literacy Award from the Texas Association for the Improvement of Reading, and the J.H. Shelton Excellence in Teaching Award in 2012. 

Co-Director, Dr. Leslie Patterson 

Teacher Consultants

Molly Adams 

Dr. Joan Curtis 

Joan taught high school in Dallas ISD for ten years. (1995-2005).  She was a the secondary ELA Curriculum Coordinator in Denton ISD for seven years. (2008-2015).  She taught and coached teachers in effective writing instruction for UNT  for two years and taught for Johns Hopkins University/DFW Urban Teachers.  Joan is an author, spiritual director, and has been a Teacher Consultant for NSTWP since 2003.  She holds a Ph.D. in Reading with minor in Anthropology and an M.A. in Secondary Reading.

Holly Genova

Holly is currently a high school ESOL and Newcomer teacher in Lewisville, Texas.   As a teacher and advocate of newcomer students, she is committed to ensuring that linguistically-diverse learners are seen through an asset lens. She holds leadership positions with the North Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts and the North Star of Texas Writing Project.  In 2012, she was awarded the Teacher of the Year for Lewisville High School Harmon,  and in 2016 she was awarded the Texas Council of Teachers of Language Arts Teacher of the Year.  

Dr. Whitney Lawrence

Whitney taught at the elementary level for 10 years. She is currently an instructional specialist at an elementary school in North Texas. She holds a Ph.D. in Language and Literacy from the University of North Texas. Her areas of interests are multimodality, critical literacy, and curricula that promotes social justice and social action. She has been a Teacher Consultant for NSTWP since 2017.  In 2015, she was the recipient of the NTCTELA Elementary Teacher of Excellence award.  

Dr. Juanita Ramirez-Robertson

Juanita has been teaching elementary students since 2001. She is a Literacy Specialist in Descubriendo La Lectura, the Spanish reconstruction of Reading Recovery.  She holds a PhD with a major in Reading Education from Texas Woman's University. Areas of interest include: storytelling through cultural resources (dichos/ proverbial sayings), and promoting the craft of writing through writing clubs of all ages. She has been a Teacher Consultant for NSTWP since 2012. 

Dr. Carol Revelle 

After teaching middle and high school English and reading to diverse student populations for 15 years, Dr. Carol Revelle now teaches literacy and ESL courses to pre-service teachers at a large university in North Texas. Carol served as a member of the SBOE writing team for the upcoming new standards, adopted 2017. An active member of her local writing project, Carol values teacher expertise and supports robust classroom libraries where teachers focus not on teaching literature but on teaching their students. With over a dozen published articles and numerous workshop presentations, Carol demonstrates her commitment to literacy learners and their unique needs.  She is a past-president of the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts and the Texas Association for the Improvement of Reading. In her free time, Carol travels with her family, plays with her rescue dog, Finn, and grows the best tomatoes in Texas.

Amanda Brewer

Amanda has taught middle and high school ELAR for the past ten years, focusing on English learners and special education students. She is currently pursuing a Ph. D. in Reading Education at Texas Woman's University. Her interests include argumentative writing and students' metacognition about their writing and their self-evaluation. She has been a teacher consultant with North Star since 2009.