Dr Rafaela Cleeve Gerkens is a lecturer in Language and Literacy Education at the Faculty of Education at the University of Melbourne, teaching preservice teachers in Literacy and the Arts. Prior to joining the Faculty, she worked as a primary classroom teacher and as a tutor in literacy and creative arts education at Victoria University. Rafaela brings a strong background in the arts to her work at the Faculty of Education and her research interests lie in drama-rich pedagogy for learning across the curriculum and the use of arts-rich translanguaging pedagogies to support language and literacy learning.

Dr Mellie Green is a Lecturer in English and Literacy Education at Southern Cross University and an experienced classroom teacher, teacher-librarian and curriculum leader in primary education. Her research focuses on children’s literature, reading for enjoyment, and classroom-based literacy pedagogies that support students’ development as readers and pre-service teachers’ development as reading teachers. Mellie works in close partnership with schools on design-based literacy projects that connect research and classroom practice, including the Reading Engagement and Differentiation (READ) project. She is a strong advocate for the central role of high-quality children’s literature in effective primary English teaching.