Rupen Fofaria is a storyteller at EDNC.org, where he examines how education policy shows up in classrooms and impacts teachers, students, and families. Rupen has invested much of his time since 2019 reporting stories about literacy instruction in North Carolina. His stories about the body of research on how kids learn to read take readers inside classrooms, advance student and family narratives, explore challenges for early reading teachers, and study best practices in colleges of education. Prior to joining EdNC, Rupen was an attorney in Raleigh and Chicago, practicing start-up and intellectual property law. In his (much) younger days, he was a sports writer for ESPN.com, the Raleigh News and Observer, and the Orlando Sentinel. Rupen’s passion is shining light on untold and underreported issues.

Further Resources and Rupen’s Picks:

• Rupen Fofaria and his reporting
• Ending the Reading Wars: Reading Acquisition From Novice to Expert by Anne Castles, Kathleen Rastle, and Kate Nation
• Language at the Speed of Sight: How We Read, Why So Many Can’t, and What Can Be Done About It by Mark Seidenberg
• The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
• The Tristan Strong Series by Kwame Mbalia
• Theories of Adolescent Development by Barbara M. Newman and Philip R. Newman
• Y Guides
• “Out of anger comes controversy, out of controversy comes conversation, out of conversation, comes action.“ Tupac Shakur