Elizabeth H. Rozas

As Assistant Professor of Literacy at the University of North Florida’s College of Education and Human Services, my primary research focuses on supporting engagement with and comprehension of informational texts at the elementary and middle school level. One of my favorite aspects of working at UNF is that I am able to stay connected to classroom practice through my role as Faculty-in-Residence at Tiger Academy Charter School in Jacksonville. An important goal of mind is that my research is relevant, impactful and valuble to those practicing in the field. I teach both graduate and undergraduate courses including Differentiated Instruction in Literacy, Content Area Reading, Classroom Discourse in the Elementary Classroom, Early Literacy and Linguistics, Mind, Brain and Education (English Department) and Academic Writing in the Ed.D. program.   

Prior to starting my doctoral work, I was Instructor of Literacy at Emmanuel College in Boston and worked for nine years as a teacher and literacy coach in the Boston Public Schools. As an author with Stenhouse (Crafting Writers, 2008 and Readers Writing, 2014), I have also given numerous professional development workshops to schools and districts around the country on Writing Workshop and using reader's notebooks to enahance students' engagement and critical thinking with the texts they read. I recently published a book

Current research projects include a study on High Attention Reading through Talking (HART), a reading format a developed that targets upper elementary students' ability to independently read informational texts with a high degree of stamina and effort.  This format is currently being used in 17 schools by Read USA as part of the teen tutoring program.  I also just published a book called High Attention Reading:  Preparing Student for Independent Reading of Informational Text (Teachers College, 2022) about this reading format.

I am also working with a reading interventionist at Tiger Academy on a study that examines discrepancies between upper elementary students' instructional reading levels as determined by their iready diagnostic scores versus running records using the Basic Reading Inventroy (BRI).   Additional research is the Know More work, with Pamela Williamson and Katrina Hall, that examines perceptions of clinical faculty and InSTEP, an initiative and research project with Xavier Rozas and Kim Cheek that examines interdisciplinary field trips at the STEP Lab and embedded professional development in literacy through science based out of school experiences.

I am also the director the Seven Bridges Writing Project, a National Writing Project site at UNF which is about to host it's third annual Summer Institute.  For more information about the Seven Bridges Writing Project see https://www.johnwesleywhite.net/seven-bridges-writing-project