Thomas Newkirk

Thomas Newkirk is a Professor Emeritus of English at the University of New Hampshire and a longtime literacy scholar whose work focuses on composition, literacy development, and the teaching of writing. He taught writing at the University of New Hampshire for 39 years, retiring in 2016, and founded and directed the New Hampshire Literacy Institutes, a summer program for teachers. Newkirk has also served on his local school board for a decade, including seven years as chair.

He is the author of numerous influential books on literacy and writing, including Embarrassment: And the Emotional Underlife of Learning, Literacy’s Democratic Roots: A Personal Tour Through Eight Big Ideas, Minds Made for Stories: How We Really Read and Write Informational and Persuasive Texts, Reimagining Writing Assessment: From Scales to Stories, Writing Unbound: How Fiction Transforms Student Writers, and Holding On to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones: Six Literacy Principles Worth Fighting For. His earlier works such as The Art of Slow Reading, The Performance of Self in Student Writing (winner of the NCTE David H. Russell Award), and Misreading Masculinity: Boys, Literacy, and Popular Culture have been widely recognized in the field of literacy education.