Assistant Professor Gholnecsar Muhammad was named the 2016 recipient of the Janet Emig Award, which recognizes researchers studying English teacher education.
The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) awards this honor annually to a contributor to its English Education journal whose published article “most contributes to our thinking about English teacher education and most informs our research,” according to her award letter.
This year’s Janet Emig Award recognizes Muhammad’s April 2015 piece entitled, “‘Inducing Colored Sisters of Other Places to Imitate Their Example’: Connecting Historic Literary Societies to a Contemporary Writing Group,” which explores a four-week summer literacy program she developed for Black girls to read and respond to historical texts written by African-Americans.
“Designing a writing space grounded in history created opportunities for participants to cultivate writing development,” Muhammad writes at the conclusion of her article. “The girls in this study began to think of their identities as writers and connected to a wider and ongoing lineage of authors.”
Since publishing the article, Muhammad has continued this line of research with Black Youth Write, a NCTE-funded workshop she hosted this summer that brought local students to Georgia State’s campus to practice their writing skills and explore issues facing black youth today. She also contributed two articles to English Education’s Black Girls’ Literacies issue, the first special issue on this topic. This special issue was in collaboration with the Black Girls Literacies Collective, which features a group of scholars committed to advancing research and community-engaged scholarship on Black women and girls’ multiple literacies.
As the 2016 Janet Emig Award recipient, Muhammad will be recognized at the council’s annual convention in Atlanta this November. She’ll also have the opportunity to make a presentation related to her award-winning article as part of the convention.
For more information about the award, visit https://www.ncte.org/cee/awards/emig.