This award will be given in 2025.
Most years, the Western Literature Association and the Charles Redd Center for Western Studies are sponsoring up to two K-12 Teaching Awards that will provide teachers with the opportunity to attend and present at the Western Literature Association Annual Meeting.
The prize then includes conference registration, an award banquet ticket, a WLA membership, and $700 cash toward conference related costs such as hotel and airfare. Prize winners must attend the WLA conference and present on the WLA/Redd Center K-12 Teacher Panel. Continuing Education credit may be available. Please check with your district’s professional development office.
Required application materials
• Resumé
• Instructional Plan (K-12, any level)
• Teaching Statement (how the Instructional Plan contributes to your teaching goals)
• One letter of support (from principal, administrator, or colleague)
Due date for application materials: August 4, 2025
Please mail them to Dr. Kristen Brown, Awards Chair, at
kristen.brown@northern.edu.
Instructional plans
Instructional plans may focus on any author or theme related to the literature of the American West, broadly defined. We encourage teachers to submit their new and existing teaching ideas, especially
• interdisciplinary teaching plans as well as approaches to the literature and history of the region
• environmental writing
• instructional plans that integrate the conference theme.
Instructional Plans should be based on a focused 2-4-week unit on a specific theme, author, work of literature, etc. You do not need to include daily lesson plans, but you may submit supplemental discussion questions, assignment sheets, etc. The provided instructional plan format is very flexible and just a guideline. You are welcome to develop a format and structure that applies to your teaching and classroom context and grade level.
Award details, including the instructional plan format and scoring rubric, can be downloaded by clicking on the links.
By applying for this award, you give permission to the WLA and the Charles Redd Center to post your lesson plans on their websites and to possibly include your lesson plans in other publications. Your work will remain your own and you will be given appropriate citation and credit in any digital or print reproductions of your work.
Interested in viewing the winning instructional plans of previous years?
2025:
Kylie Nicole Jennings, Southmoore High School, “In Cold Blood : Analyzing the Impact and Ethicality of the True Crime Genre”
2023:
Emily Ward, Rockland School District #382, American Falls, Idaho, “Shoshone-Bannock History and Native American Policy”
2019:
Katharine Amber Anthony, Palo Duro High School, Amarillo Independent School District, TX, “Establishing Roots: Place-Based Learning in a Multicultural, Title I High School”
2018:
Nathan Parker, Holland Hall School, Tulsa, OK, “Teaching Plains Writer Susan Glaspell’s ‘A Jury of Her Peers’”
2017:
Jennifer Kawecki and Hakan Armagan, Burke High School, Omaha, NE, “My Land, Our Land: Exploring the Ethics of Energy Policy, Consumption, and Sustainability Using Aldo Leopold’s ‘The Land Ethic’,” a cooperative effort by an English and a physics teacher.
2016:
Hali Kirby, Gardiner Public Schools, Gardiner, MT, “‘Letters from Yellowstone’: Stories of Women Scientists in Yellowstone National Park”
2015:
Tom McGuire, Santa Cruz Catholic School, Austin, TX, “The Forgotten Role of Native Americans in the Texas Revolution”
Jamie Crosswhite, Canyon High School, Canyon, TX, “Identity through Place”
Cheryl Hughes, Sentinel High School, Missoula, MT, “Using Service Learning and Oral History Projects to Teach Indian Creek Chronicles by Pete Fromm”