Memoir Talk to Address At-Risk Learning

10/11/2016 

Ginnah Howard, a successful novelist who has turned to memoir, will read from her recent teacher-narrative work on Wednesday, Oct. 12, at SUNY Cortland.

Howard will share from and discuss I’m Sick of This Already: At-Risk Learning in a High School Class (Illume, October 2015) during an event titled “At-Risk Leaning in the Schools,” which begins at 7 p.m. in Sperry Center, Room 105.

The education-related activity was organized by Janet Duncan, professor of foundations and social advocacy, and sponsored by the School of Education.

I’m Sick of This Already documents a year Howard spent working with a challenging group of students on improving their language skills.

Using classroom scenes, Howard strives to help the reader come to know each of these students.

One reviewer, Ralph Fletcher, author of Walking Trees: Portraits of Teachers and Children in the Cultures of Schools, commented, “I found the book engrossing, with sharply drawn portraits of students who stayed on my mind.”

Howard also wrote a novel trilogy about two troubled Upstate New York families that spans the years from 1946 to 2003. Each novel stands alone. In book one, Rope & Bone: A Novel in Stories (Illume Publications, July 2014), all the Merricks and Morlettis have a chance to give their “take” on their formative years.

Book two, Night Navigation (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009), focuses on the Merrick family. This novel was a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice. Book three, Doing Time Outside (Standing Stone Books, 2013), gives the Morlettis’ side of the story.

The National Alliance on Mental Illness of New York State gave Howard its Media Award for work on behalf of those with mental illness and their families.

For more information about Howard’s work, visit www.GinnahHoward.com.

For information about the visit, contact Victoria Boynton, professor of English, at 607-753-2082 or Duncan at 607-753-2447.