The Read Woke Challenge: Ignite Curiosity, Inspire Empathy, and Create Community

About the Presenters

Cicely Lewis is an educator and author. She was named the 2020 National Librarian of the Year by School Library Journal and Scholastic, a 2019 Library Journal Mover and Shaker, and received the 2019 National Teacher Award for Lifelong Readers by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and Penguin Random House (PRH). In 2017, she started the award-winning Read Woke Challenge in response to the shootings of young unarmed black people, the repeal of DACA, and the lack of diversity in young adult literature. Her students were required to read books that challenge the social norm and give voice to the silenced. Using this platform, she had inspired the nation to Read Woke with educators across the world joining in and sharing the movement with their students. A native of Mississippi, she currently resides in Georgia with her anime-loving husband, Michael, and two rambunctious children, Tristan and Trinity. When she is not reading, you can find Cicely writing for her bi-monthly column in the School Library Journal where she shares her book recommendations.

Gwynn White-Best is the Library Media Specialist for the Robin Hood Library Media Center at an elementary school in Brooklyn, New York. As the school’s LMS, her main objective is to ensure that the library media center is integrated into the school’s instructional goals. Gwynn has integrated a Makerspace where students focus on STEAM activities—making, learning, exploring, and sharing—through high-tech to no-tech tools. She engages students and staff in a high-quality computer science program (CS4All) that balances rigorous and meaningful direct instruction with open-ended creative computing. She is currently part of the CS4All Culturally Relevant Education (CRE) Ingenuity Team which engages exceptional CS4All teachers in a two-year study to bring culturally relevant lessons to classrooms by developing meaningful CRE practices with the focus on computer science. Gwynn has successfully integrated the Read Woke program into her library for the third consecutive school year!

Margie Soto is a first-generation Latina, a daughter of immigrants, and a proud product of the public school system. Originally from New York, Margie is a Lehman College graduate with a bachelor’s degree in Spanish literature and secondary education. She attended Mercy College to pursue her master’s in TESOL. She has dedicated 21 years to education with 11 years of teaching experience. Margie is passionate about learning about different cultures and life experiences from others. She is fluent in Spanish and English. While studying high school Italian she picked up Brazilian Portuguese in tandem. It is with honor and pride that Margie serves the multilingual community and she is proud to be a reflection of her students.

Calum McFarlane is a primary school teacher working in Scotland. He has been implementing an elaborated version of the Read Woke program with learners ages 4-11, using different strategies in doing so, after becoming aware of the Read Woke challenge during a nationwide professional learning opportunity focused on building “racial literacy.” This program is now playing a central role in “de-colonizing the curriculum” in Calum’s school.