Dr. Melissa A. Awenowicz

Contact Information

Office: Phillips 214
Phone: 740-368-3559
E-mail: mmawenow@owu.edu

• Interim Director, Adolescent to Young Adult and Multi-Age Programs
• Curriculum Vitae

Education

• B.A. Indiana University of Pennsylvania (1988)
• M.A.T.  University of Pittsburgh (1989)
• PhD University of Pittsburgh (2009)

Biography

Dr. Awenowicz joins the Department from the University of Pittsburgh where she most recently served as a clinical instructor, teaching courses in English Education, and coordinating clinical experiences, supervision, and licensure requirements for all candidates in the teacher certification programs.  While at Pitt, she earned her PhD in Instruction and Learning with a specialization in English Education.  Dr. Awenowicz’s research focuses on examining the beliefs and cultural models of teacher candidates as they negotiate the competing ideological and conceptual spaces of a teacher education program, examining the influences that context and time have on their emerging and developing beliefs, thinking, and practices. 

Prior to her work at Pitt, Dr. Awenowicz was a middle and high school English teacher since 1989, spending most of her career focusing on teaching courses in multicultural literature, classical literature, as well as in the teaching of literature and writing to support struggling readers and writers. 

• EDUC 353: Developmental Reading: Content Literacy and Young Adult Literature
• EDUC 366: Secondary Methods: English & Language Arts
• EDUC 369: Field Experience Secondary
• EDUC 370: Secondary Teaching: Knowledge and Practice
• EDUC 377: Teaching Workshop: Supporting and Extending the Learning
• EDUC 481-484: Being and Becoming a Professional: Secondary and PreK-12 Student Teaching Seminar

Professional Memberships

• National Council of Teachers of English
• American Educational Research Association
• Pi Lambda Theta

Professional Interests

• Critical Discourse Analysis/Cultural Models
• Pre-Service Teacher Identity Formation
• English Education

Personal Interests

• Family: Ken, Ben and Sarah
• Reading

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