Communities of Practice: An Alaskan Native Model for Language Teaching and Learning

About the Contributors

173 About the Contributors Walkie Charles (Yup’ik) is Assistant Professor of Central Alaskan Yup’ik in the Alaska Native Language Program at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. He received his PhD in applied linguistics in 2011. His interests include dynamic assessment, sociocultural theory, and Yugtun (Yup’ik Eskimo) language teaching and learning. His dissertation was titled Dynamic Assessment in a Yugtun L2 Intermediate Adult Classroom. Marilee Coles-Ritchie is Associate Professor at Westminster College, where she teaches educational foundations, qualitative research methods, and English language endorsement courses. She has experience working in the field of language acquisition and multicultural education for over twenty years. She has taught English learners in many diverse settings, including a public high school in Douglas, Arizona; a bilingual secondary school in Quito, Ecuador; and an elementary school in the Navajo Nation . She has a master’s of teaching degree in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and a PhD in cultural and social foundations of education. Her work includes collaborative action research that illustrates creative ways teachers navigate structural barriers to support students ’ home languages and funds of knowledge. She continues to explore how intersections of competing and conflicting discourses concerning language instruction, comprehensive teacher professional development, and measures of academic achievement impact equitable learning environments . 174 • About the Contributors April G. L. Counceller (Alutiiq), also known as Isiik, is Assistant Professor of Alutiiq language and culture at Kodiak College, a campus of University of Alaska Anchorage, where she is developing an Alutiiq studies program. She serves as the language program manager for the Alutiiq Museum and Archaeological Repository, a Native-run nonprofit where she has worked since 2002. She is organizer for the Qik’rtarmiut Alutiit (Alutiiq People of the Island) Regional Language Advisory Committee and the Nuta’at Niugnelistet (New Word Makers) Alutiiq New Words Council. She sits on advisory boards for the Alaska Native Language Archive, and Cultural Survival’s Native American Language program and serves on the Alaska Anthropological Association board of directors, and the Alaska Native Languages Preservation and Advisory Council. Her doctoral research centered on participant benefits of community-based language programs and refocused discourse on heritage revitalization in terms of sovereignty and self-determination. Theresa Arevgaq John is Associate Professor in Alaska Native studies and rural development at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. John currently serves on the National Advisory Council on Indian Education and the Alaska State Council on the Arts board, and she is the former chair of the Arts Council’s Traditional Native Arts Panel. She is also the recipient of the governor’s Distinguished Humanities Educator Award. John is an expert on Yup’ik traditional dance, and she is herself a traditional culture bearer. Her research focuses on traditional Yup’ik song and dance and Indigenous epistemologies. It is her personal mission to collect and learn as many Yup’ik songs and dances as possible from elders before they are gone. Joan Parker Webster is retired Associate Professor of Education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. During her tenure, she developed the Reading Endorsement for state licensure and the master’s of reading and literacy program at University of Alaska Fairbanks. Parker Webster also worked extensively with the Math in a Cultural Context project, developing literacy modules based on Alaska Native storytelling. During her last four years at University of Alaska Fairbanks, she taught in the SLATE program . She is currently an educational consultant and continues to conduct ethnographic research and write in the areas of online education, research methodologies, and multiliteracies. Hishinlai’ “Kathy R. Sikorski,” received her MEd in curriculum and instruction in 2008 and is currently working on her dissertation. Her re- About the Contributors • 175 search and interests are on Indigenous language learning and teaching, second language acquisition, self-identity, sociocultural theory, and activity theory. She has worked extensively with Indigenous groups (Athabascan , Haida, Tlingit, Alutiiq, and Aleut) throughout Alaska and Canada. Hishinlai’ MEd di’i ˛i ˛ ts’à’ jùk PhD geenjit ch’adantł’oo. Jìi kwaii geenjit gineech’ahtthat—nats’àhts’à’ diiginjìk geech’oorahtan, nats’àhts’à’ diiginj ìk gooraa’ee, ginjih ch’izhii gooraa’ee, nats’àhts’à’ adagineech’arahtthat, ts’à’ nats’à’ diilak na ˛i ˛i ˛ dèegee’yà’. Hishinlai’ Dinjii Zhuh na ˛i ˛i ˛ Alaska ts’à’ Canada nahkat gwats’an goovaa tr’agwah’yà’. ...