Affirming each student’s identity is fundamental to fostering the connection needed for our students to grow as a community of readers and writers across the year–and this begins when teachers learn their students’ names. This article highlights how students, teachers and literacy coaches through a partnership between an elementary school and middle school in southeast Michigan connected together through storytelling as an avenue to reclaim and celebrate their names. The second author shares her collaboration as the literacy coach with elementary teachers, which began with a read aloud of read Alma and How She Got Her Name (Martinez-Neal, 2018) and culminated in teachers and students published their “name story” notecards as a part of the school-wide Name Story bulletin board. The third, fourth and fifth authors, all teachers at a middle school, describe a unit of study they designed and taught alongside the first author, their literacy coach, to engage students in a genre story of “name stories,” which resulted in them composing their own name story picture books. The authors conclude by sharing how they brought the two schools together to share their name stories as well as the powerful outcomes experienced by students and teachers alike.
Author Bio
Christina M. Ponzio, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of literacy studies at Grand Valley State University. Her work as a teacher educator is informed by her previous experiences as a secondary ELA/ESL teacher, ESL program coordinator, and literacy coach in Metro Detroit. As a teacher educator and researcher, Christina is committed to cultivating among teachers and learners a sense of agency and efficacy to enact change from the bottom up to advance greater equity and social justice within language and literacy education. She can be reached at ponzioc@gvsu.edu.
Janine Kopera is a former early literacy coach for Melvindale Northern Allen Park Schools where she also served as their Coach on Special Assignment (COSA) for Wayne RESA. Being recently retired, she is interested in spending more time with family while continuing to share her passion for children’s literature and education through research, writing, and presenting. She can be reached at koperaj24@gmail.com.
Jennifer Krueger, in her 11 years as a Michigan educator, has been privileged to work with students and educators at Strong Middle School in Melvindale. She has worked as a 7th grade teacher who specialized in teaching English Language Learners with an emphasis on reading and writing. Committed to learning, she has received a Master of Education degree in Curriculum, Instruction and Assessment as well as a second Master degree in Learning and Technology. She can be reached at kruegej@melnapschools.com.
Katharine Kwiatkowski is a middle school special education teacher at Strong Middle School in the Melvindale-Northern Allen Park School District. She is interested in special education best practices, co-teaching strategies, and the use of effective, evidence-based literacy instruction. She can be reached at kwiatkk@ melnapschools.com.
Heather Shiveley has been a 7th grade English Language Arts teacher at Strong Middle School since 2019. She has been educator for 14 years and has taught English, Speech, Journalism, Drama, and Reading Intervention to students in 4th -12th grade. She can be reached at shivelh@melnapschools.com.
Recommended Citation
Ponzio, Christina M.; Kopera, Janine; Krueger, Jennifer; Kwiatkowski, Katharine; and Shiveley, Heather
(2025)
"Reclaiming and Celebrating Our Names: Storytelling-as-Connection through an Elementary-Middle School Partnership,"
Michigan Reading Journal: Vol. 57:
Iss.
2, Article 9.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/mrj/vol57/iss2/9
