Sarah Donovan

Author and Editor of "Rhyme & Rhythm: Poems for Student Athletes" and "Teacher-Poets Writing to Bridge the Distance: An Oral History of COVID-19 in Poems"

January 10, 2022

Sarah J. Donovan’s professional interests include ethical, inclusive curriculum, methods and assessment practices in secondary English classrooms. She is a former junior high English language arts teacher of fifteen years and an Assistant Professor of Secondary English Education at Oklahoma State University. She wrote "Genocide Literature in Middle and Secondary Classrooms" (2016) and the young adult novel "Alone Together" (2018). She is a co-editor for the online journal "Writers Who Care." Dr. Donovan was the Books in Review columnist for The ALAN Review (2019) and serves as a state representative and board member for The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE (ALAN). She is the founder of a blog and poetry writing community for teachers, Ethical ELA, and has contributed chapters to "The Best Lesson Series" (Talks with Teachers, 2018), "Queer Adolescent Literature as a Complement to the English Language Arts Curriculum" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), "Moving Beyond Loss to Societal Grieving" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018), and "Contending with Gun Violence in the English Language Classroom" (Routledge, 2019). 

About "Rhyme & Rhythm: Poems for Student Athletes"

"Rhyme & Rhythm: Poems for Student Athletes" captures through exquisite and heart-felt poetry the lives, pains, sufferings, revelations, grit and triumphs of the student athlete. On the track, on the diamond, on the court, on the street, in the home, in the ring and through all walks of life. More than forty renown poets have come together to illustrate the tightrope walk, the personal challenges, and the self-discovery of this amazing and often overlooked group of people. Dive in and discover the poetic life, both the rhyme and the rhythm, of the student athlete.

About "Teacher-Poets Writing to Bridge the Distance: An Oral History of COVID-19 in Poems"

During the early days of quarantine, many teachers turned to poetry to process their experiences. "Teacher-Poets Writing to Bridge the Distance: An Oral History of COVID-19" preserves this poetry and teachers' experiences as they navigated a new reality in education. In the interviews, teachers revisit poems written a year prior, re-witnessing, with perspective offered only by time, the impact of the pandemic on them as teachers and on education more broadly. This anthology offers readers the poems shared across 39 collected oral histories. The full collection of interviews is available for online public access through the Oklahoma Oral History Research Program.

URL: https://library-dep.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2022-honorees/sarah-donovan

Last Updated: 17 January 2022