Rate My Professor Kelly Tracy

Kelly N. Tracy, Ph.D., is Professor and Director of the School of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education and Allied Professions at Western Carolina University. She earned her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction with an emphasis in literacy from Clemson University in 2009, with a dissertation titled "A Formative Experiment Investigating the Use of Nonfiction Texts in Writing Workshop to Assist Fourth-Grade Readers and Writers." Prior degrees include a master's from Furman University focused on cultural perspectives and cognition, and a bachelor's in teacher education from Appalachian State University. Before entering higher education, Tracy taught third grade at East North Street Academy, an urban public magnet school in Greenville, South Carolina, for three years, and fourth grade English Language Arts at Ellen Woodside Elementary, a rural school in the same district, for five years.

Tracy joined Western Carolina University as an assistant professor, advancing to associate professor and then full professor. She served as program director for elementary and middle grades education for two years and has been involved in university supervision, research in local classrooms, and partnerships with Haywood County schools and a private school in Black Mountain focused on writing and teacher development with the NAACP. Her research specializations include literacy education, writing instruction and engagement, teacher preparation in writing methods, the use of text sets to foster critical thinking, and challenges in rural professional development. Key publications are "Obstacles to Enhancing Professional Development with Digital Tools in Rural Landscapes" (2015, Journal of Research in Rural Education, 104 citations), "It’s Not About Being Right: Developing Argument Through Debate" (2020, Journal of Literacy Research, 49 citations), "A Curriculum Model for K–12 Writing Teacher Education" (2020, Research in the Teaching of English, 30 citations), "A National Study of Exemplary Writing Methods Instructors’ Course Assignments" (2019, Literacy Research and Instruction, 30 citations), and "Using Text Sets to Facilitate Critical Thinking in Sixth Graders" (2017, Literacy Research and Instruction, 28 citations). Tracy received the 2019 Teacher Educator as Researcher Award from the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers.