Rebecca Wheeler

Rebecca works with literacy coaches, communication specialists, and classroom teachers K–12 who want to know “what to do about all those missing –ed’s, -s’s” in their students’ writing. A Professor in the Department of English and the Program for Teacher Preparation at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, VA, Wheeler has consulted for public schools K – 14 from New York to New Orleans, and from Chicago and to Baltimore. While her work currently focuses on helping teachers respond to African American student writers, the practical, affirming, research-based strategies she brings extend to any group of students who speak and write an Everyday English differing from School English (Cajun English, Native American English, Appalachian English, Southern English, Bronx English, International English, etc). Wheeler shows teachers how to build on what students do know–Community English–as they add Standard English to their linguistic repertoires.

Wheeler has presented and published widely on code-switching, including Code-Switching: Teaching Standard English in Urban Classrooms (NCTE, 2006) and “Becoming adept at code-switching,” in Educational Leadership (2008) of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development. In 2010, with Rachel Swords, she co-authored “Factoring Dialect into Reading Assessement and Intervention,” for Reading in Virginia. Wheeler is currently collaborating with her local school district to establish Centers for Readers and Writers in urban middle schools. Rebecca lives in Newport News, with her husband, her black lab, and the gardens of their verdant homestead. Wheeler can be reached at rwheeler@cnu.edu.