Distinguished Teaching Award to Ernest Morrell

05 May 2008

Dear Education Faculty

I am very pleased to let everyone know that Ernest Morrell is this year's winner of the Education Department Distinguished Teaching Award. Even though he has been with us only a few years, Ernest has established a record as a phenomenal teacher and mentor in his undergraduate, doctoral, and TEP courses. Please join me on congratulating him on this much deserved recognition.

Best wishes,
Sandra
------
Sandra Graham
Professor & Chair
Department of Education
UCLA

Ernest Morrell Bio

Ernest Morrell is an associate professor in Urban Schooling and Associate Director for Youth Research at the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access (IDEA) at the University of California at Los Angeles. For more than a decade he has worked with adolescents, drawing on their involvement with popular culture to promote academic literacy development. Morrell is also interested in the applications of critical pedagogy in urban education and working with teens as critical researchers. Morrell is currently involved in a research project examining the applications of critical pedagogy in several classrooms across Los Angeles. Additionally he is working with colleagues in IDEA to develop a Mayor's Council of Youth Researchers, which will involve local teens in research that contributes to educational reform and social justice. For the past ten years he has also been involved in a summer seminar where urban teens conduct research project in local neighborhoods and schools.

Morrell previously taught English for six years at Oakland High school in Northern California where he was nominated five times for "Who's Who Among America's High School Teachers" and was recognized by the Oakland Unified School District, Oakland Community Organizations, US Congresswoman Barbara Lee, and the California State Senate for his service to the Oakland Public Schools. At UCLA Morrell teaches courses on critical pedagogy, English methods, literacy theory, activist research, and Pan-African Education. Morrell is the 2007-2008 recipient of UCLA's Department of Education Distinguished Teaching Award.

Morrell is the author of four books, Linking Literacy and Popular Culture: Finding Connections for Lifelong Learning (Christopher-Gordon), Becoming Critical Researchers: Literacy and Empowerment for Urban Youth (Peter Lang), Critical Literacy and Urban Youth: Pedagogies of Access, Dissent, and Liberation (Routledge) and The Art of Critical Pedagogy: Possibilities for Moving from Theory to Practice in Urban Schools (co-authored with Jeffrey M.R. Duncan-Andrade). Morrell received his Ph.D. in Language, Literacy, and Culture from UC Berkeley.