Anna Smith, PhD

Dr. Anna Smith received her Ph.D. at New York University and brings over 25 years of teaching experience & dedication to humanizing learning to research on writing development, transliteracies, and the intersection of teaching and learning. She is currently an Associate Professor of Literacies and Technologies at Illinois State University, following an IES Postdoctoral Fellowship in Writing and New Learning Ecologies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. She is currently a Lead Co-Editor of the Literacy Research Association‘s journal Literacy Research: Theory, Method, and Practice . She directs the Education Now Lab, which is a community-engaged research+practice lab that engages in and produces a range of scholarship using emerging technologies and new media alongside community members. She is co-author of Developing Writers: Teaching and Learning in the Digital Age and co-editor of the Handbook of Writing, Literacies, and Education in Digital Cultures. Her recent and award-winning research can be found in journals such as the Journal of Literacy Research, Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, Literacy, and Theory into Practice.

Recent Scholarship

LeBlanc, R., Aguilera, E., Burriss, S., de Roock R., Fassbender, W., Monea, B., Nichols, T.P., Zacher Pandya, J., Robinson, B., Smith, A. & Stornaiuolo, A. (2023). Digital platforms and the ELA classroom. NCTE James R. Squire Office of Policy Research in English Language Arts.

McBride, C., Smith, A., Kalir, J. (2023). Tinkering toward teacher learning: A case for critical playful literacies in teacher education. English Teaching: Practice & Critique, 22(2).

Thakurta, A. G. & Smith, A. (2022). Flexibility by and for design: Reimagining learning structures in unsettled times. Voices from the Middle, 29(3).

Smith, A. & Thakurta, A. G. (2022). Feedback redux: Affirming youths’ learning lives through a design thinking approach to feedback. Voices from the Middle, 29(4).