FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The keynote speaker for this year’s University of Arkansas Literacy Symposium was made an honorary Member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain, but the recognition he has received in the United States for his work at an inner-city Los Angeles public elementary school is just as impressive.

Rafe Esquith, fifth-grade teacher at Hobart Boulevard Elementary School in Los Angeles, has won the National Medal of Arts presented by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Disney National Outstanding Teacher of the Year Award and Oprah Winfrey’s $100,000 Use Your Life Award. Most of his school’s students are from immigrant families, primarily Hispanic and Asian. Many are learning English and 92 percent live below the poverty level. Esquith’s students excel academically and each year they produce a Shakespeare play.

National media organizations including the Washington Post, CBS News, National Public Radio and PBS have profiled Esquith for his work. He has written two books: Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire: The Methods and Madness Inside Room 56 and There Are No Shortcuts.

Esquith will speak during the fourth annual Literacy Symposium sponsored by the department of curriculum and instruction in the College of Education and Health Professions. The symposium takes place June 18-19 at the Fayetteville Town Center. Cost and registration information are available at http://cied.uark.edu/5674.htm.

Other equally renowned speakers featured at this year’s symposium are Debbie Miller, a former Denver Public Schools teacher who specializes in the teaching of reading and is the author of Reading with Meaning and Teaching with Intention: Defining Beliefs, Aligning Practice; Chris Crutcher, an author of young adult literature, most recently Deadline, published by HarperTeen, and a former teacher who has won numerous awards for his writing and other work; and Kassie Misiewicz, who co-founded TheatreSquared in Fayetteville and now works as executive artistic director of Tricycle Theatre for Youth in Bentonville.

The symposium theme is Differentiated Literacy for Diverse Learners. Teachers who attend both days will receive 12 hours of Arkansas Department of Education-approved professional development credit. University of Arkansas students can attend at a discounted rate.