Lent, Releah Cossett: - ReLeah Cossett Lent was a middle and high school English, social studies, and journalism teacher before becoming a founding member of a state-wide literacy project at the University of Central Florida. While there, she worked with a team to develop Florida's Reading Endorsement courses and coordinated literacy leadership teams in schools across the state. She is now an international consultant-- speaking, writing, and providing workshops on topics ranging from literacy to leadership teams. She has authored 11 books on all aspects of literacy, including engagement, disciplinary literacy, and literacy leadership teams. Her most recent books are the bestsellers This is Disciplinary Literacy: Reading, Writing, Thinking and Doing. . .Content Area by Content Area and Disciplinary Literacy in Action: How to Create and Sustain a School-Wide Culture of Deep Reading, Writing, and Thinking.

While she often provides keynote addresses and one-day workshops, her most productive work has been through multi-day residencies in schools, districts and consortiums. As an example, she has created numerous professional learning initiatives in and across districts for content-area teachers, instructional coaches, and administrators with in-school follow-up. The significant increase in student achievement and teacher leadership demonstrated the effectiveness of such a disciplinary literacy approach. She recently facilitated a year-long literacy leadership initiative in a high school, and the principal termed the experience "transformational" in terms of teacher learning and transfer to the classroom. They plan to expand the model throughout the district.

ReLeah believes strongly in facilitating student ownership and active learning, most often through powerful collective efficacy as teacher teams engage in problem solving.

ReLeah has been the recipient of several educational awards, such as intellectual freedom awards from both the National Council of Teachers of English and The American Library Association. She also received the prestigious PEN First Amendment Award and was awarded the Florida Council of Teachers of English (FCTE) President's Award for "significant contribution to the teaching of English in the State of Florida."