about laura
Laura Bradley taught middle school English in Sonoma County, California from 1988 until 2022. She also developed and taught a design lab class, and co-created and taught a broadcast media class, where her students produced the school’s daily news show.
Laura holds an M.A. in Educational Technology, and is a Google Certified Innovator, PBS Digital Innovator All-Star, National Board Certified Teacher, Bay Area Writing Project Teacher Consultant, and first place winner of the Henry Ford Teacher Innovator Award. Her students' enthusiastic response to NaNoWriMo in 2011 inspired Laura to share the experience with other teachers so that more teens could join the ranks of novelists. Contact Laura here if you'd like more information about bringing NaNoWriMo to your students.
Read about Laura and her NaNoWriMo students in the news:
On Edutopia:
"#ThinkPossible: Challenging Students to be Novelists"
"An EduAwesome Project for Your BestYearEver"
"The Birth of Student Novelists"
"A Day in the Life: 5 Tips for the NaNoWriMo Agenda"
"10 Tips for Assessment: NaNoWriMo and Beyond"
On KQED Mind/Shift:
"Turning Reluctant Writers into Novelists"
...and a KQED article:
"How Writing Novels Expands Students' Expectations of Themselves," KQED Mind/Shift
On podcasts and webinars:
Getting Students Excited to Write with NaNoWriMo, reThinkELA podcast
For the Love of Lit: Inspiring Young Authors, PBS Learning Media webinar
Student-centered learning, Education Now! podcast
Laura Bradley talks NaNoWriMo, Talks with Teachers podcast
On the news:
"How and WHY to Join National Novel Writing Month," Impatient Optimists blog (Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)
"A Passion for Learning is Hard to Quantify," The New York Times
"Petaluma's Kenilworth students write novels in a month," The Press Democrat
"Students Inspired by Novel Writing," Petaluma Argus-Courier
"The Magic Assignment," Office of Letters and Light blog
"A Novel Idea," Sonoma Family Life Magazine
"Teacher Scraps All Classroom, Homework and Tells Students: Just Write" PetalumaPatch.com