Mollie Blackburn

Mollie Blackburn is a professor in the Department of Teaching and Learning in the College of Education and Human Ecology at the Ohio State University. Her research focuses on literacy, language, and social change, with particular attention to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth and the teachers who serve them.

She has published in journals such as Reading Research Quarterly, Research in the Teaching of English, and Teachers College Record, among others. She is the author of Interrupting Hate: Homophobia in Schools and what Literacy can do about it and the co-editor of Acting Out!: Combating Homophobia through Teacher Activism, which received the Phillip C. Chinn Book Award, the Richard A. Meade Award, and the American Library Association’s CHOICE Book Award.

She has received WILLA’s (Women in Life and Literature Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English) Inglis Award for her work in the areas of gender, sexuality, sexual orientation, and young people; the Queer Studies special interest group of the American Educational Research Association’s award for a body of work; and the Alan C. Purves Award for an article in the Research in the Teaching of English deemed rich with implications for classroom practice.  

• PhD, Reading/Writing/Literacy, Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania, 2001
• MEd, Language Education, College of Education, University of Georgia, 1996
• BA, English and Education, Westhampton College, University of Richmond, 1991

• English/Language Arts Teacher Education
• Equity
• LGBTQ+ Studies
• Literacy
  • New Literacy Studies
• Young Adult (Adolescent) Literature

Mollie Blackburn’s research focuses on literacy, language, and social change, with particular attention to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and questioning (LGBTQ) youth and the teachers who serve them. Current projects include a long-term teacher inquiry project focused on improving central Ohio schools for LGBTQ people and a teacher research project focused on teaching LGBT-themed literature in a queer-friendly high school.

Teaching

• 7431 Ethnography of Literacy and Language, Part 1
• 7432 Ethnography of Literacy and Language, Part 2

• Rewey Belle Inglis Award for outstanding service relating to the role of image of women, Women in Literacy and Life Assembly, National Council of Teachers of English, 2013
• Body of Work Award, Queer Studies Special Interest Group, American Educational Research Association, 2010
• Distinguished Service Award from the Council of Graduate Students, The Ohio State University, 2007
• Distinguished Teaching Award from the College of Education, The Ohio State University, 2006
• Alan C. Purves Award for an article in the Research in the Teaching of English deemed rich with implications for classroom practice , 2005

• Blackburn, M.V. & Schey, R. (2017). Adolescent literacies beyond heterosexual hegemony. In K.A. Hinchman & D.A. Appleman (Eds.), Adolescent literacies: A Handbook of practiced-based research (38-60). New York: Guilford Publications, Inc.
• Blackburn, M.V. (2016). Traditionally marginalized bodies making space through embodied literacy performances. In G. Enriquez, E. Johnson, S. Kontovourki, & C. Mallozzi (Eds.), Literacy, learning, and the body (pp. 170-181). New York: Routledge.
• Clark, C. T. & Blackburn, M.V. (2016). Scenes of violence and sex in recent award-winning LGBT-themed young adult novels and the ideologies they offer their readers. In C.T. Clark, W. Martino & M.V. Blackburn (Eds.), Queer and trans perspectives on teaching LGBT-themed texts in schools [Special issue]. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 37 (6), 867-886. 
• Blackburn, M. V., Clark, C. T., & Nemeth, E. (2015). Examining queer elements and ideologies in LGBT-themed literature: What queer literature can offer young adult readers. Journal of Literacy Research, 46(14), 1-38.
• Blackburn, M. V. & Clark, C. T. (2011). Analyzing talk in a long-term literature discussion group: Ways of operating within LGBT-inclusive and queer discourses. Reading Research Quarterly, 46(3), 222-248.
• Blackburn, M. V. (2005). Agency in borderland discourses: Examining language use in a community center with Black queer youth. Teachers College Record, 107 (1) 89-113.
• Blackburn, M. V. (2005). Disrupting dichotomies for social change: A Review of, critique of, and complement to current educational literacy scholarship on gender. Research in the Teaching of English, 39 (4) 398-416.
• Blackburn, M. V. (2003). Exploring literacy performances and power dynamics at The Loft: Queer youth reading the world and word. Research in the Teaching of English, 37 (4) 467-490.