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You are currently here: Home > The Course Crafters Team The Course Crafters TeamCourse Crafters is an experienced team of educators and publishing professionals, specializing in developing educational materials for English Language Learners (ELLs) and their teachers. We create high-quality student texts, supplementary materials, teacher's editions, and content for print and multimedia learning materials to meet our clients' needs and ELL market requirements. With our on-staff resources and our vast network of specialized freelance personnel, Course Crafters can assemble a project team with the precise qualifications required to produce first-rate results in the specialized, growing ELL market.
Click on each name to see who we are and what we do. To contact us, call 1-978-372-3446.
Vista Resources has been involved in developing a wide variety of intervention programs, guided and leveled reading, content area readers, Reader's Theater, and programs at every level of literacy learning from pre-K through high school. Barbara's recent client list includes Benchmark Education, Great Source, Scott Foresman, The Princeton Review, Newbridge Publishing, Loyola Press, McDougall Littell Publishers, and the U.S. Department of Education. Barbara holds a Masters Degree in Education from Boston University. Early, after several years of classroom teaching, she served as a reading consultant on a variety of Federally-funded reading programs and regional consortia. Contact blevadi@yahoo.com.
Ellen M. Balla, Freelance Editor/Writer has been working in the field of education since 1979. During that time, she has been involved in teaching ELL students at the elementary, middle school, high school, college, and adult levels. She has planned and implemented curriculums for different districts and has trained master's candidates in the area of teaching English as a Second Language at Fairleigh Dickinson University. Ellen also served as an elementary school principal in New Jersey for one year. In addition to teaching, Ellen has been working in the field of publishing since 1983. Her publishing experiences include writing ELL materials for elementary, middle school, high school, adult, and college students. Ellen has also written grammar-based textbooks for mainstream elementary students. She has authored many guided reading books for children at the elementary level and has written more than 100 lesson plans for guided reading teacher's editions. She has authored two books, Ten Tales for Teaching English and Ten Fables for Teaching English. Ellen was formally trained at Fairleigh Dickinson University and holds a B.A. in psychology and a M.A. in Teaching English as a Second Language. She holds an additional M.A. in Educational Administration from Kean University. Jeri S. Cipriano, Freelance Writer/Editor has more than a 25-year track record creating award-winning materials for classrooms, specializing in materials for students at risk and earning nine EDPRESS awards as Editorial Director of at-risk and special needs students at Scholastic, Inc. While at Scholastic, responsible for supplementary reading magazines and programs, Jeri developed and launched U.S. EXPRESS, the first English Language Learning magazine of its kind, in 1988. Since then, she's devoted the majority of her time developing guided reading, early literacy, and intervention programs for ELL and at-risk students. These materials include guided readers, leveled readers for ELLs, high-interest nonfiction intervention magazines and books, as well as more than 50 original titles in the areas of science and social studies for K-3, 3-5, and 6-8 grades. Jeri is well-grounded in time-tested strategies as well as recent pedagogy for helping both teachers and students. Before turning to full-time independent work, Jeri received the Achievement of Excellence award at Scholastic Inc, served as Edtiorial Director at Heinle and Heinle and as Executive Editor at Newbridge Education in charge of guided reading programs. Marilyn Greco, Freelance Editor has been working in the field of educational publishing for the past 20 years. During that time, she has been involved in the planning, development, implementation, and marketing of educational products for preschool through college in both print and electronic media as a developer, manager, and author for reading/language arts, Etta Johnson, Freelance Writer has a long career as an ESL teacher, curriculum and assessment developer, and writer of student materials. Beginning her teaching career as a reading specialist, she found her true niche in working with second language learners. As a second language learner herself, Etta is proud to have helped with the language and cultural assimilation of thousands of new immigrants. As an elementary ELL coordinator in a highly diverse, metropolitan-area school system, Etta was a pioneer in developing curriculum integrating language and content, correlated with appropriate reading materials. She did extensive staff development, taught university courses, and developed assessment tools and a system for tracking student progress. The many nonfiction materials she has authored for beginning and intermediate elementary and secondary ELL students are widely used throughout the system. Now retired, Etta serves as a consultant, developing curriculum, assessments, and student materials that are aligned to state standards and the No Child Left Behind Act. She also writes curriculum, evaluates, presents staff development, and teaches for Project Family, a parenting program for language minority parents and preschool children. As a consultant for a bilingual video series for ESL parents, she keeps the focus on vocabulary and language development in the lessons and activities. Etta has also taught and written curricula for adult English learners. Her Long Ago series, four history books at both emergent and early reading levels, also available in Spanish, was published in 2001. Dr. Barbara Krol-Sinclair, ELL Literacy Consultant is Director of the Intergenerational Literacy Project (ILP), a collaboration of Boston University and the Chelsea (MA) Public Schools. As part of her responsibilities with the ILP, she develops curriculum, mentors instructional staff, and leads demonstration lessons for both adults' and children’s components of the program. She has served on the Chelsea Public Schools’ literacy curriculum committee and leads professional development workshops for elementary and secondary teachers. Dr. Krol-Sinclair holds an Ed.D. in Literacy, Language, and Cultural Studies from Boston University. She has worked extensively in elementary, secondary, and adult education in a variety of schools and community education settings throughout the United States and overseas. Dr. Krol-Sinclair has authored and co-authored several publications in the area of home-school collaborations, including co-authorship on the research monograph What Should We Expect of Family Literacy? She has made numerous research presentations at state and national conferences. Dr. Natalie A. Kuhlman, Consultant, ELL Standards and Assessment. Dr. Natalie A. Kuhlman is Professor Emeritus of Education at San Diego State University, where she taught courses in language assessment, policy, and acquisition and bilingual research at the M.A. and Ph.D. levels. She is a past president of CATESOL and past board member of International TESOL. She has worked in the areas of English Language Development (ELD) standards and assessment locally, nationally, and internationally, both as a presenter and through publications. Dr. Kuhlman was the coordinator for the development of the California ELD Standards, an advisor to the CELDT (California statewide ELD test) development, and author of LOTS (Language Observation Tasks System). She is now a member of the TESOL/NCATE ESL Teacher Standards Task Force and serves on the NCATE Board (National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education), and she served on the Publications Committee for TESOL. Dr. Kuhlman writes on assessment and standards for ELLs in The ELL Outlook™. Barbara Linde, Freelance Editor/Writer began her extensive career in education as a teacher in elementary classrooms. She earned an M.A. in Reading Improvement from California State University, Northridge and has completed post-graduate level coursework in reading and English as a Second Language at the University of California Santa Cruz and the University of Virginia. Barbara has taught at all grade levels from Pre-K through adult. For the past twelve years, Barbara has used her classroom knowledge in her work as a writer and editor of educational materials. In her work for Course Crafters, she has served as a developmental editor for programs including LeapFrog SchoolHouse’s Language First!; Rigby’s On Our Way to English; a guided reading series for The Wright Group; and ESL components for two social studies series. Michelle Hyde Parsons, Freelance Editor/Writer Michelle Hyde Parsons, Freelance Editor/Writer, started her educational publishing career in 1987 as an editor for The World Book Encyclopedia. Since then, she has devoted herself to creating engaging content-based reference, reading/language arts, literacy, and ELL/ESL course materials. At Ligature Creative Studios, Michelle helped develop a variety of thematic reading and literature programs-including Silver Burdett-Ginn's Literature Works, Houghton-Mifflin's The Language of Literature, and McDougal-Littel's Writer's Choice. A freelancer since 1997, Michelle's editorial experience includes work on Glencoe/McGraw-Hill's Glencoe Literature; Rigby's On Our Way to English, Rigby Literacy and Comprehension Quarterly; Harcourt Achieve's Gigglers and Fluency Theater intervention programs; and World Book/Childcraft's The How and Why Library. Other ELL experience includes working as Course Crafters' project editor for Harcourt Education's Success for English Learners and science writer on Benchmark Education's English Explorers series with Course Crafters. Michelle has written 11 nonfiction leveled books as well as scores of teacher materials; comprehension, literacy, and writing activities; oral-language chants; prototypes; and program guidelines. She has also conducted writing-process workshops at schools in Illinois and Florida. Libby Romero, Freelance Writer has found her background as a newspaper and magazine journalist and ESL teacher to be a wonderful combination for her work as an ESL curriculum developer. Following seven years as a newspaper and magazine journalist, Libby received her M.A. in Education, focusing on ESL, and took a teaching job in Arlington, Virginia. During her four years with the Arlington Public Schools, she primarily taught beginning level middle school ELLs. However, she gained experience at all levels of the ESL spectrum: K-12; beginning through advanced proficiency levels; as an ESL pull-out and classroom teacher. For the past five years, Libby has been a freelance curriculum developer. She has produced science and language arts teaching units for ESL students, developed reading and writing assessment materials, and created the framework for a college-level course for teachers focusing on improving minority achievement. She is currently working with Course Crafters to develop a series of leveled science readers for grades 3-6 ELLs. Libby received her bachelor's degrees (B.S., B.J.) from the University of Missouri-Columbia and her M.Ed. from Marymount University. Dr. Joanne C. Wachter, Freelance Writer has been an educator for over 20 years. Her credentials include a doctorate in curriculum and instruction. She has taught in both public and private elementary schools. Joanne also served for 12 years as a district language arts curriculum supervisor and as a coordinator of a district ELL program. In addition, she helped to create and implement a statewide reading and writing assessment in Maryland. Joanne has been writing instructional materials for over 25 years and has been a full-time freelance writer since 1996. She has extensive experience in writing textbooks, teacher's guides, ancillary materials, fiction and nonfiction passages, leveled readers, and assessments. Joanne specializes in the subject areas of reading, language arts, and ELL materials for primary through high school levels. She is known for producing creative materials while closely following project guidelines, meeting reading level specifications, and incorporating state standards. A few of her recent projects include writing primary level reading intervention materials, creating passages and questions for middle school assessments, writing student and teacher materials for an ELL reading, writing, vocabulary, and grammar program, and completing a teacher edition for an ELL language program. Joanne is a member of the Society for Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, the International Reading Association, and Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). She has won writing awards from agencies such as the Association of Educational Communications and Technology, the American Bar Association, and the Eastern Educational Network.
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linguistics at Boston University, where she was responsible for placement and supervision of bilingual, ESL, and modern foreign language student teachers. Bilingualism, biliteracy, and the development of content-based curriculum and materials for teaching both English as a Second Language and Spanish as a first and second language are among Dr. Irujo’s specialties. Dr. Irujo has worked with Course Crafters since the company began in 1993. She is the editor of 
In Chicago, she served as a writing consultant for Northeastern Illinois University, during which time she developed curriculum and taught in at-risk elementary and high schools on Chicago's South Side. More recently, Kristin has worked as an adjunct professor of writing and literature at a number of universities, including Boston College, the University of New Hampshire, and Columbia College Chicago. Kristin has also designed and taught an online writing workshop for Norwich University. Look for Kristin's byline regularly in Course Crafters' bimonthly newsletter, 
Since joining Course Crafters in early 2002, Alex created 
social studies, science, and math. In addition to her work in the field of educational publishing, Marilyn has been a practitioner of education, working with students in academic settings from preschool through college as a teacher, counselor, and consultant. Her specialization has been in literacy and English as a Second Language, with an emphasis in instructional design, curriculum development, and technology integration.
Course Crafters is always looking for freelance writers and editors. Email resumes to