Kari-Lynn Winters

Born in St. Thomas, Ontario, Winters has studied or taught in schools across North America. Her master's thesis "Developing an Arts-Integrated Narrative Reading Comprehension Program for Less Proficient Grade 3 and 4 Students," on exploring the efficacy of using the arts to strengthen less proficient students' reading comprehension, was selected as best Master's Thesis in Literacy in Canada, 2005.[3] Winters completed her PhD in 2009 with a dissertation entitled "Authorship as Assemblage: Multimodal Literacies of Play, Literature, and Drama."[4] She holds a teaching degree from the University of Toronto, in regular and special education for children ages 3–13. She is also a graduate of the National Theatre School of Canada, where she earned a certificate in technical theatre.[5] Her dramatic work included writing scripts for and performing with Vancouver's theatre-for-literacy troupe Tickle Trunk Players.[6]

Winters has published award-winning children's books,[7][8] children's non-fiction articles, and academic articles, and has herself won multiple Excellence in Teaching awards[9] and won the St. Catharines Arts Awards 2016 "Emerging Artist Award".[10][11]

She says she didn't always consider herself a writer; many of her elementary school years were spent either resisting composition or struggling to write.[12] Her current work explores how she came to appreciate storytelling and children's literature and eventually became a writer herself, and ways to effect a similar transformation in her students.[13] Winters has been featured in radio and newspaper interviews[14] and her academic work has been cited by other literacy researchers.[15][16][17]

From 2010-2012 Winters expanded her work to educational activism, from organizing an annual "Arts Matters" educational conference[18] to raising funds for girls' education in Africa. Proceeds from her book Gift Days are being used to support the charity Because I am a Girl, a movement to "unleash" the power of girls and women in the developing world through education and women’s rights;[19] at its book launch in November 2012, enough money was raised to send 10 girls to school in Uganda for a year.[20] By 2016 she had twenty-six books published or press, and was nominated for the St. Catharines Arts Awards in the "Emerging Artist" category.[21]

• Jeffrey and Sloth (Orca Book Publishers, 2007)
• When Chickens Fly (Gumboot Books, 2009)
• On My Walk (Tradewind Books, 2009)
• Runaway Alphabet (Simply Read Books, 2010)
• aRHYTHMetic: A book and a half of poetry about math, by K. Winters, T. Stone, and L. Sherritt-Fleming, ill by S. Ritchie (Gumboot Books, 2009; Tickle Trunk Publications, 2011)
• aRYTHMétique, adapted by Christine Jutras-Tarakdjian (Gumboot, 2009; Tickle Trunk Publications, 2011)
• Gift Days (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2012)
• Buzz about Bees (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2013)
• Stinky Skunk Mel (Simply Read Books, 2014)
• No-Matter-What Friend (Tradewind Books, 2014)
• Hungry for Math: Poems to Munch On (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2014)
• Bite into Bloodsuckers (Fitzhenry & Whiteside, 2015)
• Bad Pirate (Pajama Press, 2015)
• Good Pirate (Pajama Press, 2016)
• French Toast (Pajama Press, 2016)
• Let's Play a Hockey Game (Scholastic, 2016)

• "Rumors," in Stephen Rogers (ed.), My First Year in the Classroom: 50 Stories That Celebrate the Good, the Bad, and the Most Unforgettable Moments (Cincinnati: Adams Media, 2009)
• "Rhyme or Reason," ill. by S. Ritchie, in World of Stories (Gumboot Books, 2008)

POETRY

• "A Scientist Lives in Our Kitchen." Know Magazine, 9 (May/June, 2007), p. 18.

• Winters, K. et al. (2017). "A Reason to Respond: Finding Agency Through the Arts." International Journal of Education & the Arts 18:25.[22]
• Winters, Kari-Lynn, Griffin, S. (2014). "Singing is a Celebration of Language: Using Music to Enhance Young Children’s Vocabularies." Language and Literacy, 16(3), 78-91.[23]
• Wager, A. & Winters, K. (2012). "Expanding Educators’ Awareness of Youth Homelessness through Critical Dramatic Inquiry." In Teaching and Learning 7(3).
• Winters, K. et al. (2010). "From image to ideology: analysing shifting identity positions of marginalized youth across the cultural sites of video production" In Pedagogies: An International Journal, 5(4), 298–312.
  • This article was later selected among Pedagogies 10th anniversary "Top Articles."[24]
• Winters, K. (2010). "Quilts of authorship: A literature review of multimodal assemblage in the field of literacy education." In Canadian Journal for New Scholars in Education, 3(1).
• Winters, Kari-Lynn, Belliveau, George, & Sherritt-Fleming, Lori. (Spring, 2009). "Shifting identities, literacy, and a/r/t/ography: Exploring an educational theatre company." Language and Literacy, 11(1).[25]
• Rogers, Theresa, Winters, Kari-Lynn, Bryan, G., Price, J., McCormick, F., House, L., Mezzarobba, D., & Sinclaire, C. (March, 2009). "Developing the IRIS: Toward Situated and Valid Assessment Measures in Collaborative Professional Development and School Reform in Literacy." The Reading Teacher, 59(6), 544–553.[26]
• Winters, K. "Letting Arnold Lobel Pack My Luggage". (Spring 2006) The Dragon Lode: Journal of the Children's Literature and Reading Special Interest Group, International Reading Association, 24(2) 46–50.

• "Honey, I Shrunk My Liver." Know Magazine, 6 (Nov/Dec 2006), p. 4.
• "Monkeying Around with Perfume." Know Magazine, 9 (May/June, 2007), p. 3.
• "Measure Me A Measurement." Know Magazine, 11 (September/October, 2007), p. 18.
• "Colorful Mistakes." Fandangle Magazine for Children, (September, 2007).

• "Jeffrey's Wor(l)ds Meet Sloth," illustrated by Oana Capota. Chameleon Magazine, 2:1, 24-28 (2004).
• "Esper's Dream," illustrated by Tami Thirlwell. Chameleon Magazine, 3:1, 24-28 (2006).
• "Extreme Rollers." ChickaDEE Magazine, (January, 2008)
• "The Mightiest of All." Know Magazine, ( January, 2008)

• Winters, K. (2010). Beyond Words: Using the Arts to Enhance Early Reading Comprehension. Birmingham, AL: Look Again Press. Available online.
• Rogers, T., Winters, K., Perry, M., & LaMonde, A. (2014). Youth, Critical Literacies, and Civic Engagement: Arts, Media, and Literacy in the Lives of Adolescents. New York: Routledge.[27]

• Winters, K. Rogers, T., Schofield, A (2006). "The Antigone Project: Exploring the Imaginative, Active, and Social Dimensions of Drama, Print Literacy, and Media." In Crumpler T., Schneider, J., and Rogers, T. (eds.). Process Drama: an Educational Tool for Developing Multiple Literacies. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
• Winters, K. and Rogers, T. (2010). "Textual Play, Satire, and Counter Discourses of Street Youth Zining Practices." In Alvermann, D. (ed.) Adolescents' Online Literacies: Connecting Classrooms, Digital Media, and Popular Culture (New Literacies and Digital Epistemologies), pp. 91–108. New York: Peter Lang Publishing.

• Rogers, T. and Winters, K. (2008). "Within 14 blocks: Zining with street youth in the YouthCLAIM project." Presented at the National Reading Conference. Orlando, FL.[15][28]
• Rogers, T., Winters, K., Perry, M., & LaMonde, A. (2009). "The YouthCLAIM project: Researching critical literacies and arts-integrated media production among youth in classroom and community sites." Presented at the annual meeting of American Educational Research Association. San Diego, CA.[29][30]

• 1992: Honours Bachelor of Arts, Theatre, Brock University, St. Catharines Ontario
• 1994: Theatre Technician Certificate, National Theatre School, Montreal
• 1998: Diploma in Child Study (Master's equivalent), Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto (OISE/UT)
• 1998: Ontario Certificate of Qualification (Primary/Junior)
• 2004: Master of Arts, Language and Literacy Education, University of British Columbia
• 2009: Doctor of Philosophy, Language and Literacy Education, UBC

• Brock University faculty page
• Kari-Lynn Winters personal website
• "Developing the IRIS: Toward Situated and Valid Assessment Measures in Collaborative Professional Development and School Reform in Literacy"
• "Esper's Dream"
• "Jeffrey's Wor(l)ds Meet Sloth"
• Orca Book Publishers' Jeffrey and Sloth page
• Tickle Trunk Players literacy drama troupe