Rebecca Woodard, PhD
Associate Professor
Curriculum & Instruction
Contact
Building & Room:
1216 ETMSW
Address:
1040 W. Harrison St. (MC 147), Chicago, IL 60607
Office Phone:
Email:
About
Rebecca Woodard's research explores intersections between multimodal literacies, science, and the arts, with a particular focus on environmental and sustainability education. Utilizing primarily qualitative methods, she examines teaching and learning with children and teachers working in grades pre-K to 8. Her research has explored teacher writing, culturally sustaining writing pedagogies, connected teaching and learning, urban teacher education, civic literacies, climate change education, and embodied/performance pedagogies in literacy and science. She recently co-authored a book with Kristine Schutz through Teachers College Press (2024), Teaching Climate Change to Children: Literacy Pedagogy that Cultivates Sustainable Futures.
She is the co-editor of a National Council for Language Arts (NCTE) for elementary teachers, Language Arts; the faculty director of the Chicago Area Writing Project; and the co-founder of the UIC College of Education Makerspace, the Make Good Lab.
Before coming to UIC, she was an elementary and middle school teacher in New York City. She teaches literacy methods courses in the Urban Elementary Education program, and classes on writing research at the masters and doctoral levels.
Selected Publications
Woodard, R., & Schutz, K. M. (2024). Teaching climate change to children: Literacy pedagogy that cultivates sustainable futures. Teachers College Press.
Schutz, K., & Woodard, R. (2024).Water protection: An inquiry unit with pre-service English Language Arts teachers. Climate Literacy in Education [Special Issue “Water as Conflict, Water as Commons”].https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/cle/article/view/6287/3712
Woodard, R., Batres , S. B., Varelas, M., Diaz, A. R., Dougherty, B., Rosario, M., Soto, G., Rodriguez, A. B., Phillips, N., , Tsachor, R., Kotler, R., & Rock, R. (2024). “We are water warriors”: Children Perform Chicago Global Water Dances. Climate Literacy in Education [Special Issue “Water as Conflict, Water as Commons”]. https://pubs.lib.umn.edu/index.php/cle/article/view/6283/3713
Woodard, R., Diaz, A., Phillips, N., Varelas, M., Tsachor, R., Kotler, R., Rock, R., & Melchor, R. (2024). “Be creative and have fun”: Elementary-aged children’s digital and embodied composing in science. Literacy, 58(2), 167-177.
Woodard, R., Diaz, A. R., Phillips, N. C., Varelas, M., Kotler, R. T., Tsachor, R., Rock, R. M., & Melchor, M. A.(2023). “I. Am. a. Star.”: Exploring moments of muchness in children’s digital compositional play and embodied science learning. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 22(2), 163-176. https://doi.org/10.1108/ETPC-08-2022-0101 [Special Issue was a 2025 recipient of the Divergent Publication Award for Excellence in Literacy in a Digital Age Research]
Woodard, R., Vaughan, A., & Coppola, R. (2020). Writing ‘beyond the four corners’: Adolescent girls writing by, in, from, and for bodies in school. Journal of Literacy Research, 52(1), 6-31. https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X19896496
Notable Honors
2024, Award for Excellence in Teaching, UIC
2019, Graduate Mentoring Award, UIC Graduate College
2023, 2017, Teaching Recognition Program, UIC Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Education
2013 - PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Curriculum & Instruction
2006 - MAT, Pace University, Elementary Education
2004 - BS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Psychology