I taught Special Education and reading for 9 years in a rural area of Georgia before completing my PhD in Literacy Education at Georgia State University. While at GSU, I founded and directed the Urban Literacy Clinic where we tutored students from 2nd to 11th grades with reading challenges, partnered with a local non-profit to teach students in the juvenile justice system, and offered family literacy workshops. I accepted a position at the University of Colorado Denver in 2010 where I teach undergraduate and graduate courses in children's literature, secondary literacy, and literacy assessment.