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Alum Receives Award for Gifted Curriculum

Michael Clay Thompson, a creator of curriculum in poetics, writing, grammar and vocabulary, and a member of Washington and Lee University’s Class of 1969, has received the Richard W. Riley Award from the South Carolina Consortium for Gifted Education. “The award reflects the unique place Thompson’s language arts curriculum has come to have in gifted education,” says the consortium’s release. “While others have attempted to produce curriculum for gifted children, none has had the success or the longevity of Thompson’s curriculum.  Its pedagogic effectiveness has been recognized increasingly by educators and homeschoolers alike, and now the curriculum is being eagerly embraced by parents who are teaching their children at home.”

Michael, who has an M.A. from Western Carolina University and has studied gifted education at Mars Hill College, has taught at schools in Tennessee, North Carolina and Indiana. When he was teaching middle school, he formulated a vocabulary curriculum; a professor at Mars Hill nudged him toward a publisher. Royal Fireworks Press now publishes six levels of Michael’s curriculum, which reaches students all across the country.

Michael and his wife, Myriam, with whom he has collaborated, live in Durham, N.C. He teaches language arts online through Northwestern University and travels to present his work to educators around the U.S.

You can read more about Michael and his work at his website.

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