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Neumann poses in photo from a 2011article in the Marietta Daily Journal

College of Education alumnus Ryan Neumann, an English teacher at Pope High School in Cobb County, is receiving national recognition for a book he wrote about his experiences as a teacher during the first five years of his career.

Neumann (MEd ’06), of Atlanta, was named recipient of the 2013 James N. Britton Award for Inquiry within the English Language Arts from the Conference on English Education, a division of the National Council for Teachers of English for his book titled, What Had Happened.

The self-published book is a collection of observations based on his experiences teaching English at South Cobb High School in Austell, before he moved to teach at his alma mater. The book’s title comes from students’ excuses for not completing assignments.

“The cover of the book describes its contents as ‘a work of friction,’ which refers primarily to his decision to change people’s names to protect their anonymity but also is an attempt to capture how he felt when writing certain parts of the book. Ryan writes from his first-person perspective and focuses on the absurdities of the teaching life—the contradictions, the inconceivabilities, the students, the colleagues, the community,” said Peter Smagorinsky, Distinguished Research Professor of Language and Literacy Education and Neumann’s former professor at UGA. “He relates how it feels to be a teacher, in and out of the classroom.”

Neumann will receive the award Nov. 22 at the 2013 NCTE Annual Convention in Boston.