Title
Assistant Professor
Department
TEd
Contact Information
Office: General Campus
Phone: 801-422-9288
Email: paul_ricks@byu.edu
I’m originally from the ever-exotic Winslow, Arizona, a little town on the edge of the Navajo and Hopi tribal lands. No worries if you haven’t heard of the place, but if you’re a fan of old school rock music then it will perhaps ring a bell. Also, I studied Portuguese and Elementary Education as an undergraduate, which later led to international and stateside teaching opportunities in university and elementary settings. After teaching in fifth- and sixth-grade classrooms for seven years (it smelled like a lot of puberty, but it was an absolute blast), I eventually went back to grad school at another smallish town, State College, PA, where I worked with Dr. Yenika-Agbaw at Penn State.
My wife Stephanie and I have three little boys who keep things pretty interesting/exciting at our place. For those who may wonder, I’m a Ravenclaw, Steph is a Hufflepuff, and we just found out that our eldest is a Slytherin. The youngest two have yet to be sorted, but as ours is already a house divided, I imagine we’re in for a wild ride.
As a children’s and YA literature specialist, I like to think that my courses help readers to rediscover a love for reading. I feel like we educators often do ourselves a great disservice by taking something that is inherently beautiful/approachable/liberating, such as literature, and making it altogether quite painful. My hope, however, is that my courses do something to alleviate that unnecessary pain and suffering, and instead serve as means for learners to reframe how they position themselves as active participants in the reading process.
I teach about the artistry involved in the creation of texts for young readers, I teach about how children’s literature can and must be taken seriously, and I teach about how our engagements with literature—specifically children’s literature—help us to better understand ourselves and each other.
Critical analysis (e.g., postcolonial, critical multicultural, critical race) of texts for young readers
How read-aloud discussions enhance and/or take away from readers’ transactions with texts
The joys and productive discomforts of working with translated texts
How readers make meaning through the interanimation of written words and illustrations in picturebooks
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Nancy Peery Marriott Excellence in Teaching Award —
2023
- Sponsor: McKay School of Education
- This honor is awarded for an exemplary commitment to student learning.
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Nancy Peery Marriott Excellence in Teaching Award —
2023
Journal: The Reading Teacher
Date: 2023
Publisher: Springer
Journal: Children's Literataure in Education
Date: 2023
Publisher: International Literacy Association
Editors: Tanya Wright and Patricia Edwards
City: Newark, Delaware
Country: USA
Volume: 77
Issue: 1
Pages: 6-15
Journal: The Reading Teacher
Date: 2023
URL: https://www.springer.com/journal/10583
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Editors: Hafds Gujnsdttir & Robert Kleinsasser
City: Milton Park, Oxfordshire
Country: United States
Volume: 124
Issue: 104013
URL: https://www.springer.com/journal/10583
Journal: Teaching and Teacher Education
Date: 2023
ISSN: 0742-051X
URL: https://www.springer.com/journal/10583
Publisher: Springer
Editors: Rhonda Brock-Servais, Catherine Butler, and Victoria de Rijke
Country: United States
Volume: 55
URL: https://www.springer.com/journal/10583
Pages: 60-74
Journal: Children's Literature in Education
Date: 2022
Volume: 76
Issue: 6
Pages: 784-782
Journal: The Reading Teacher
Date: 2022
URL: https://conference.pixel-online.net/FOE/files/foe/ed0012/FP/4934-LANG5647-FP-FOE12.pdf
Publisher: Pixel International
City: Florence, Italy
Country: Italy
Volume: 12
URL: https://conference.pixel-online.net/FOE/files/foe/ed0012/FP/4934-LANG5647-FP-FOE12.pdf
Journal: The Future of Education, 12th Ed.
Date: 2022
ISBN: 979-12-80225-51-1
Country: United States
Volume: 48
Issue: 2
URL: https://www.childrensliteratureassembly.org/uploads/1/1/8/6/118631535/7-jcl_48-2_scholarscommentary.pdf
Pages: 59-62
Journal: Journal of Children's Literature
Date: 2022
URL: http://www.clrsig.org/dragonlode.html
Publisher: International Literacy Association Children's Literature & Reading Special Interest Group
City: Newark, DE
Country: United States
Volume: 40
Issue: 2
URL: http://www.clrsig.org/dragonlode.html
Pages: 16-25
Journal: The Dragon Lode
Date: 2022
ISSN: 1098-6448
Journal: Teaching and Teacher Education
Date: 2021
Publisher: Information Age Publishing
Editors: S. Shear & A. Hawkman
City: Charlotte, NC
Country: USA
Pages: 139-167
Journal: Marking the invisible: Articulating whiteness in social studies
Date: 2019
Journal: Multicultural Perspectives
Publisher: Rowan & Littlefield
Editors: Vivian Yenika-Agbaw, Ruth Lowery, and Paul Ricks
City: Lanham, MD
Country: USA
Pages: 103-105
Journal: Exploring nonfiction literacies: Innovative practices in classrooms
Publisher: Rowan & Littlefield
Editors: Vivian Yenika-Agbaw, Ruth Lowery, and Paul Ricks
City: Lanham, MD
Country: USA
Pages: 69-81
Journal: Using nonfiction for civic engagement in classrooms: Critical approaches
Volume: 71
Issue: 2
Pages: 114-131
Journal: Literacy Research and Instruction
Pages: 177-187
Journal: The Reading Teacher
Country: USA
Volume: 13
Issue: 1
Pages: 216-220
Journal: Journal of Language and Literacy Education
Volume: 34
Issue: 2
Pages: 55-58
Journal: The Dragon Lode
Volume: 35
Issue: 1
Pages: 8-15
Journal: The Dragon Lode
Journal: International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Journal: The Reading Teacher
Journal: Literacy Research and Instruction
Publisher: IGI Global Publishing