Rebekah O'Dell

Rebekah O'Dell

Rebekah O’Dell teaches seventh and eighth grade English Language Arts in Richmond, Virginia. Before becoming a middle school teacher, she spent over a decade teaching high school English in a variety of settings, from inclusion classrooms to International Baccalaureate programs. Rebekah is a co-founder of Moving Writers and the host of the Moving Writing Community, a popular blog and professional community for grades 6–12 writing teachers, which she runs alongside Allison Marchetti. She is the coauthor of three influential books on writing instruction: Writing With Mentors: How to Reach Every Writer in the Room Using Current, Engaging Mentor Texts (2015); Beyond Literary Analysis: Teaching Students to Write With Passion and Authority About Any Text (2018); and A Teacher’s Guide to Mentor Texts, 6–12 (2021). She’s a frequent speaker and workshop leader across the United States.

Rebekah has a bachelor’s degree in English and a master of teaching in secondary English education from the University of Virginia.