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Troubadour Teaching Artists

Victor Cockburn
Executive Director, Co-Founder

Victor has been combining his talents and expertise as a musician, lyricist, producer, performer and Teaching Artist to develop and present programs in schools since 1972. He received the Boston Parents’ Paper Entertainer of the Year Award in 1991 and published “The Use of Folk Song and Songwriting in the Classroom” in the Harvard Educational Review (Vol. 61 No. 1 Feb. 1991). A segment on Victor’s work in schools was included in the PBS series, Art to Heart, Early Childhood Creativity.

As Executive Producer of Troubadour’s Talking Stone Productions, he has produced audio recordings of hundreds of multi-cultural narratives, poems and songs for major educational publishers, including Scholastic, MacMillan, Hampton-Brown, Jostens Learning, Harcourt-Brace, Silver Burdett Ginn and Curriculum Associates, as well as 60 episodes of "Try It!" a weekly educational program broadcast on Brookline Cable Television.

He currently has ten recordings of children's songs and poems produced in collaboration with Judith Steinbergh. Their multicultural curriculum CD and book set, Where I Come From! Songs and Poems From Many Cultures won a 1992 Parents Choice Award for Best Children's Recording as well as an award from the Early Childhood Educator. Their CD set, Get Ready for Boston! Exploring Boston and its Neighborhoods in Songs, Poems and Songs also won a 1996 Parents Choice Award.

Judith Steinbergh
Director of Writing Programs, Co-Founder

A poet, lyricist, and teacher, Judith has worked as Poet-in-the-Schools since 1971, teaching poetry to students in Grades K-12 and providing professional development to teachers. A MA licensed teacher, she was Resident Poet and Enrichment Specialist with the Brookline Public Schools from 1985-2006. She leads a yearly seminar, “Poetry Across Cultures” for Teachers as Scholars, a professional development consortium in Eastern Massachusetts.

Judith has published three textbooks on teaching poetry writing to children: Beyond Words: Writing Poems with Children. (co-authored with Elizabeth McKim); Reading and Writing Poetry, Grades K-4 (Scholastic Books); and Reading and Writing Poetry with Teenagers (Walsh Publishers, co-authored with Fredric Lown). She developed extensive curriculum in: Writing About Family, Integrating Science and Poetry and Integrating Poetry into High School Literature Classes. Her article, "Poetry, Language Development and Culture," is published in the Harvard Educational Review (Vol 61 No 1 February 1991).

A graduate of Wellesley College and Lesley Graduate School of Education, Judith was a Radcliffe and Spencer Foundation Fellow in 1997, pursuing her research on Poetry and the Developing Child. Her findings appear in NCTE Language Arts Journal and Reading Teacher, among other professional journals. In addition, Judith published a book of poems for children, Marshmallow Worlds, and four books of poems and prose for adults: Lillian Bloom - A Separation, Motherwriter, A Living Anytime and Writing My Will.

Jessica Brown

Jessica has been teaching poetry in Massachusetts and California since 1984. Her experience extends not only to schools but also to libraries and senior centers. Specialties include interdisciplinary seminars for teachers, integrating poetry into classroom curricula, bilingual programs, poetry performance, intergenerational projects, and student poetry publishing and outreach. In addition to her own performances, she has hosted various community poetry readings and appeared on local cable television programs.

She has a Master’s degree from Stanford University where she worked with Denise Levertov and received an Academy of American Poets award. More recently, she has studied with Alicia Ostriker and Maxine Kumin. A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Oberlin College, she is bilingual in Spanish, with additional studies at the University of Córdoba.

Her poems and translations have appeared in local and national journals, such as Peacework, Soundings East, the Comstock Review and American Poetry Review. She is a founding member of the Alewife Poets, a local women’s writing and performance group.

Elizabeth McKim

Elizabeth is a veteran poet with more than 30 years experience teaching writing in the classroom. She is a member of Lesley University’s national faculty and has performed her poetry in venues around the world. Elizabeth is author of four books of poetry and of a textbook on teaching poetry writing to children, Beyond Words: Writing Poems with Children (co-authored with Judith Steinbergh).

Ilene Miller

A classroom teacher of 4th and 5th graders for more than 35 years, Ilene joined Troubadour to continue her teaching of writing. She co-authored The Writing Process in Action, published by Heinemann in the United States and England, and used in many methods courses at the college level. She also co-authored The Literacy Handbook for Brookline Public School teachers, which covered all areas of writing.

Ilene has given Professional Day workshops to Boston teachers to better help them teach writing in all genres. She has worked with Troubadour for 3 years as a Teaching Artist, working in both prose and poetry. Ilene was co-director of The Freelance Players, a theater group for ages 8-12, and has also produced and directed many curriculum-based plays throughout her teaching career.

Brian Amador, composer, singer/songwriter,
Sol y Canto

Cathy Desjardins, reading/writing specialist

Fran Friedman, singer/songwriter
for young children and families

Regie Gibson, writer, performance poet

Danielle Legros Georges, poet,
Lesley University faculty

Andy Holiner, singer/songwriter,
leader of Wildest Dreams

Louise Pascale, music education,
Lesley University faculty

Barbara Scotto, reading, writing, library consultant

For information about individual writers, Contact Us.