The Boise State Writing Project fellows and Lynn Meeks’ family have set up an endowed memorial scholarship. This fellowship honors Lynn’s commitment to English teachers and to the teaching of writing.
The Boise State Writing Project will honor Lynn Meeks each year by providing a scholarship to a rural teacher to attend our centerpiece program in teacher leadership and to earn 9 graduate credits.
The Purpose
Remembrance of an outstanding educator Lynn Langer Meeks who promoted literacy through:
- Her personal traits and character, her practices and innovations
- Her implementations of Literature based and writing rich classrooms
- Serving as Co-author of Direct Writing Assessment
- Her teaching at BSU, Arizona Public Schools, and as a Language Arts Consultant through ISDE
- Her work with the Wittenberg Institute
- Her curriculum development and professional writing and tireless work on behalf of teachers!
The Recipient
The recipient of the Lynn Meeks Memorial Fellowship would:
- Be presently teaching literacy in Magic Valley (Glenns Ferry-Burley-Wood River Valley, approximately)
- Must attend and complete the requirements of the BSWP Invitational Summer Institute
- Actively promote the work of BSWP and NWP
- Mentor and support other educators in promoting authentic learning in literacy
- Be passionate about teaching reading and writing to children so that children are passionate about reading and writing
- Incorporate current research into teaching practice
Past Recipients
2021 – 2022: Tana Schroeder, Kelly Brannock
2018-2019: Riley Devito
2016 – 2017: Peggy Thomas
2015 – 2016: Ann Stevenson
2009: Brandon Bolyard
2006: Debbie Dehoney
Who was Lynn Meeks?
Lynn Langer Meeks was a full professor in English, Director of Writing, and Director of the Utah Writing Project at the time of her death in October 2006.
Born in Jerome, Idaho, she graduated from the College of Idaho in 1968. She had begun her teaching career as a high school teacher in 1968, first in Massachusetts and then, until 1985, in Scottsdale, Arizona.
After participating in the Greater Phoenix Writing Project, she was recruited into the English graduate program at Arizona State University. While teaching high school full time, she worked on her PhD in Rhetoric and Composition until she received it in 1985. In 1986 Lynn became an Assistant Professor at Utah State University, a position she resigned in 1989 to become the Language Arts Consultant for the State of Idaho.
In 1994 she married Norm Jones, Professor of History at Utah State, and returned to the English Department. She was certain that every child could learn to read and write if appropriately taught. To make that good teaching happen, Lynn worked with English teachers all over the United States, but especially in Idaho and Utah, where she provided dynamic outreach to English teachers through the Utah State Writing Project. She strongly supported the Boise State Writing Project, and her influence is felt in classrooms all over the West.
Lynn co-authored Literacy in the Secondary English Classroom: Strategies for Teaching the Way Kids Learn, published by Allyn and Bacon; and she wrote Secondary Reading and Study Strategies: A Course of Study for Grade 9, Secondary English Language Arts: Course of Study, and Fundamentals of Communication: A Course of Study for the Mandated One Credit Speech Course, among others.
Support Lynn’s Legacy
Please keep Lynn’s spirit and legacy alive by contributing to her endowment. Send checks to Boise State University Foundation, 1910 University Drive, Boise, Idaho 83725, for Lynn Meeks Fellowship.