Welcome to the Summer Literacy Institutes and the home of the MST program for teachers! Our program, started by Thomas Newkirk, started in 1981! Over 44 years ago! Join teachers from across New England and the world who have found a few weeks of summer at the University of New Hampshire to do wonders for their teaching, their spirits, and their sense of possibilities for the classroom and beyond.
For those teachers who started teaching in the last few years, we’d like to welcome you to these programs. Our courses can help satisfy alternative certification requirements. They can also lead you toward a master’s degree in the science of teaching (M.S.T.). The institutes and our faculty are a place where you can find support and gain your footing as the teaching field can throw much at us during any given school year. For my part, I took part in the NH Literacy Institutes as a first-year teacher, and the wonderful support of the community and its instructors helped me to find what I needed to feel inspired and confident in the ways I taught my students.
Our Summer 2025 courses and workshop are offered through the UNH English Department, the New Hampshire Literacy Institutes, and the College of Liberal Arts. As in the past, we staff our summer institutes and workshops with instructors who know what public K-12 school teaching is like. They know the joys, the challenges, and the possibilities. They’ve been there and can offer credible, practical advice. Our classes are small, so that participants receive individual attention, and are run in a workshop or seminar format. This summer, we are excited to offer courses in Durham, Manchester, NH, and online. We will be joining our faculty this summer, including Dr. Laura Smith, Tomasen Carey, Shelley Girdner, Jaclyn Karabinas, and Nawal Qarooni.
Laura Smith will be offering a course at the UNH-Manchester campus, focused on the teaching of writing. I will also be a guest for one of those days, focusing on systemic functional linguistics (SFL) techniques and working with multilingual writers.
Jacyln Karabinas, an expert on integrating standards and meeting the needs of students is also with us this summer to help teachers find the pathways to success for their students in reading and writing.
Nawail Qarooni will be offering a wonderful online, synchronous course on the importance of community and family in strengthening the literacy lives of students. Nawal brings with her a strong multicultural emphasis, along with her experiences in Chicago and New York City schools.
Tomasen is back with a wonderful course on stories and the importance of narrative writing. Tomasen is a legend in the New England area for her work with teachers, and this is an opportunity to work with her doing what she loves most!
Shelley Girdner, our amazing resident poet and a wonderful teacher of writing, is offering a class on how to find new ways of engaging students in poetry. Shelley has been an instructor of undergraduate writing and poetry at UNH for decades. Her class will bring poetry new life in your classroom.
For teachers in the humanities, social studies, and language arts, we are excited to partner with the New Hampshire Black Heritage Trail and Professor Kabria Baumgartner (Northeastern University) to offer Stories of Freedom 4, a renowned workshop series that introduces teachers to local history and teaches you how to use the digital archives and humanities with your students.
We are also thrilled to offer a workshop with authors, Kristina Peterson and Dennis Magliozi, on ChapGPT and AI. This is a topic that is on the minds of teachers and coaches everywhere, especially at middle school, high school, and college levels. Kristina and Dennis brings us into the possibilities and offer a path forward with how this technology will impact student writers and their teachers.
We will also have keynote sessions with some surprises! Please browse through our website to see all the offerings, instructor biographies, and times. If you have questions, please reach out to us at nhliteracy.institute@unh.edu or call 603-862-1168.
All of our courses and workshops are open to educators, coaches, and administrators– at all levels and from across the country. If you are in need of housing, please reach out. We have housing available on campus for affordable rates, and with easy access to pools and beaches. We are looking forward to an engaging, knowledge-building, and fun summer with all of you!
All my best wishes,
Christina
Christina Ortmeier-Hooper
Director, The NH Literacy Institutes at UNH
