Casey M. Pennington Assistant Professor of Literacy · SUNY Cortland

Publications and presentations

Publications

Books, peer-reviewed articles, and chapters, followed by refereed and invited presentations.

Book

  • Wessel-Powell, C., Panos, A., Pennington, C. M., & Weir, R. (2026).Cultivating Equity Literacy in Schools and Communities: Stories to Redefine School Quality. Routledge. Publisher page

Peer-reviewed journal articles

  • Pennington, C. M., & Walker, A. (2026).“I have a galaxy hand”: Centering children and youth in spatial reclamation within the nexus of practice. Children's Geographies. DOI
  • Pennington, C. M. (2025).Maps, movement, and meaning: Children restorying thresholds with heart maps and walking tours as acts of spatial reclamation. Education Sciences, 15(7), 834. DOI
  • Wessel-Powell, C., Hogue, B., Pennington, C. M., Lathrop, B., & Neal-Stanley, A. (2025).Parents' rights and the “dangers of critical race theory” for children: More than spots & stripes. Equity & Excellence in Education, 1–17. DOI
  • Walker, A., & Pennington, C. M. (2024).Bending stories, disrupting boundaries: Spatial reclamation as literacy practices beyond the rows and rules. Literacy, 58(3), 335–346. DOI
  • Panos, A., Wessel-Powell, C., Weir, R., & Pennington, C. M. (2022).Waypoints for literacy researchers: Boundary tracing, historicizing, and enacting critical equity literacies. International Studies in Sociology of Education, 31(1–2), 80–103. DOI
  • Davis, S. J., Scott, J. A., Wohlwend, K. E., & Pennington, C. M. (2021).Bringing joy to school: Engaging K–16 learners through maker literacies and playshops. Teachers College Record, 123(3), 1–23. DOI
  • Pennington, C. M., Wohlwend, K., Davis, S. J., & Scott, J. A. (2020).Performance, pottery and pliers: Rupturing play with bodies and things. English Teaching: Practice & Critique, 19(4), 433–445. DOI

Peer-reviewed book chapters

  • Buchholz, B. A., Davis, S. J., Deliman, A., Harrison, K., Iyer, I., Nelson, E., Pennington, C. M., & Scott, J. A. (2022).Taking playful methods into the wild. In C. L. Medina, M. Perry, & K. Wohlwend (Eds.), Playful methods: Engaging the unexpected in literacy research, pp. 112–129. Routledge.

Under review

  • Wessel-Powell, C., & Pennington, C. M. (Under review).Moms for libraries: A critical analysis of book banning and promotion by Moms for Liberty. Journal of Children's Literature.

Writing for practitioners

  • Pennington, C. M. (2022).Stamped: What does this book have to do with my life today? Purdue Publishing. Read

Dissertation

  • Pennington, C. M. (2023).Narrating neighborhoods: Children restorying historically segregated places. Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University, ProQuest No. 30688054.

Refereed presentations

2025

  • Paper From dilemmas to dreams: The transformative power of youth and children's storytelling in spaces Pennington, C. M., & Cordi, K. · National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Denver, CO
  • Roundtable #MakersInTheMiddle: Blending ELA, art, and activism to center student dreaming Corbitt, A., Pennington, C. M., Smith-Matsalia, V., Miyares, C., Reid, S., Bonner, S., Page, T., & Edgmon, H. E. · National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Denver, CO
  • Poster From outsiders to alongsiders: Rethinking nexus analysis and centering children and youth's spatial reclamation practices in discourses in place Pennington, C. M., & Walker, A. · American Educational Research Association (AERA), Denver, CO
  • e-Lightning Ed-Talk From outsiders to alongsiders: Rethinking nexus analysis and centering children and youth's spatial reclamation practices in discourses in place Pennington, C. M., & Walker, A. · SIG-Semiotics in Education: Signs, Meanings and Multimodality, American Educational Research Association (AERA), Denver, CO
  • Roundtable “I want to support my public school but it's not supporting me”: Mothers' segregatory literacies navigating kindergarten entry Wessel-Powell, C., Pennington, C. M., Panos, A., & Weir, R. · American Educational Research Association (AERA), Denver, CO

2024

  • Paper Rulebreaking as leadership: How students disrupted adult-designed spaces to restory and reclaim Walker, A., & Pennington, C. M. · Literacy Research Association (LRA), 74th Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA
  • Roundtable Parents' rights and the “dangers of critical race theory” for children: More than spots & stripes Wessel-Powell, C., Hogue, B., & Pennington, C. M. · Literacy Research Association (LRA), 74th Annual Conference, Atlanta, GA
  • #MakersInTheMiddle: Creating a heARTful community Corbitt, A., Bonner, S., Wargo, J., Barton, R., Thakurta, A., Fong, D., & Pennington, C. M. · National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Boston, MA

2023

  • Collaborative restorying: Youth restorying segregated spaces using the Black spatial imaginary and heart maps Pennington, C. M. · American Reading Forum, St. Petersburg, FL
  • Paper Reconstructing place-based narratives: Story-bending, walking tours and mind maps as methods in preservice teacher field experience Walker, A., & Pennington, C. M. · National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), Columbus, OH
  • An asset-based writing center Wilson, N. S., Pennington, C. M., Corbitt, A., & Healey, K. · New York State Middle School Association, Verona, NY
  • Restorying as resistance: How youth resist and reclaim spaces as a spatialized literacies nexus of practice Pennington, C. M., & Walker, A. · American Educational Research Association (AERA), Chicago, IL
  • Moms for libraries: A critical analysis of book banning and promotion by Moms for Liberty Wessel-Powell, C., Pennington, C. M., & Lathrop, B. · American Educational Research Association (AERA), Chicago, IL

2020

  • Paper Forging new links: Routes, histories, and maps in literacy research and engagement Panos, A., Wessel-Powell, C., Weir, R., & Pennington, C. M. · Literacy Research Association (LRA), Virtual
  • Research findings Creating geographies of opportunity: Connecting the dots among neighborhoods, school and housing to increase equity Myerson, D., Panos, A., Pennington, C. M., Skoby, A., Weir, R., & Wessel-Powell, C. · Building a Thriving and Compassionate Community Annual Conference, Bloomington, IN
  • Roundtable Thing-power and photographs: A sociomaterialist lens of photography in action research Pennington, C. M., Wessel-Powell, C., & Panos, A. · NCTE Assembly for Research (NCTEAR), Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN

2019

  • Paper Bringing joy to school through play and participatory literacies: Examples from grade 3 and literacy teacher education Davis, S. J., Scott, J., Wohlwend, K., & Pennington, C. M. · Literacy Research Association (LRA), Tampa, FL

2018

  • Paper A maker movement shift: Ceramics, new literacy studies and multiliteracies in a semi-structured makerspace Pennington, C. M. · International Conference on Literacy, Culture & Language Education (inaugural), Bloomington, IN
  • Poster Toyhacking for the play revolution Pennington, C. M., Scott, J., & Wohlwend, K. · American Educational Research Association (AERA), New York, NY

Invited talks and workshops

  • Invited talk · 2024 Spatial methodologies in qualitative research Pennington, C. M. · 7th Interdisciplinary Symposium on Qualitative Methods, University of South Florida
  • Campus seminar · 2024 Toyhacking and digital storytelling Pennington, C. M., & Dafoe, K. · Sandwich Seminar, SUNY Cortland
  • Invited talk · 2021 Historical research methods and thing-power as guides to neighborhood (in)equities Pennington, C. M. · Methods Research Practice, College of Education, University of South Florida
  • Guest lecture · 2018 Housing and educational (in)equities in the secondary classroom Pennington, C. M. · School of Education, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN