Mary Barber Roberts

Mary Roberts is a teacher seminar leader for K-12 inservice and pre-service teachers. She has held a number of educational positions including school district curriculum director, curriculum specialist, elementary librarian, high school English teacher and professional writer for an on-line curriculum service. Since 1999 she has taught East Asian seminars on history, culture and literature for the East Asia Resource Center. Additionally she has co-led travel study tours to East Asia for K-12 teachers through the EARC. Even though she minored in International Studies at the UW, she later became re-engaged with China, Japan and Korea during a three year institute on East Asia hosted by the UW from 1988-1990. And now? She facilitates a writing group, Write About Asia, and seminars on East Asian literature for 3-12 Classrooms.

Mary’s recent programs

• Workshop On Translation: Process and Language Play with Takami Nieda (2024)
• WAA Write About Asia: Winter 2024
• WAA Write About Asia: 2020 Freeman Award Winners (2021)
• Workshop Asian American Activism: Voices, Representation, and Resistance (2021)
• WAA Write About Asia, Spring 2021 – Sites of Memory in Asia: Remembrance and Redemption (2021)
  • WAA Write About Asia Winter 2021 – Art and Renewal in Times of Crisis in Asia (2021)
    • WAA Write About Asia Fall 2020 – Color in Asian Art: Materials and Meaning (2020)
      • WAA Write About Asia: Freeman Awards Winners (2020)
      • Workshop Study Sessions: The Chinese Exclusion Act (2020)
      • WAA What is Precious? (2020)
      • Workshop Study Session: Japanese American WWII Incarceration (2020)
      • WAA Silk Roads Past and Present: Ancient Afghan Treasure to China’s Belt & Road Initiative (2019)
      • Workshop East Asia in the Classroom: Freeman Awards Winners (2019)
      • WAA Trans Plants: Collecting, Gathering and Globalizing Plants (2019)
      • WAA Roots of Culture: Essential Plants of Asia (2019)
      • WAA Sound Travels: Performing Arts of Asia (2018)
      • Workshop Meet the Masters: Discover how to find and evaluate books on East Asia for your classroom (2018)
      • WAA Asian Textiles Across Time and Place (Spring 2018)
      • WAA Boundaries of Belonging in Asia (2018)
      • Workshop Chinese Boys in America, 1875-76 (2017)
      • WAA Waterscapes: Imagery and Environment in Asia (2017)
      • Workshop East Asian Literature in Your Classroom: Graphic Novels and Cultural Authenticity (2017)
      • WAA Islam Across Asia: Art Practices/Cultural Politics (2017)
      • WAA Tea Times: Cultures, Commerce, and Conflict (2016)
      • Workshop China, Japan and Korea: Literature for the 3-12 Classroom (2016)
      • WAA Sites of Meaning: Caring for Asia’s Cultural Heritage (2016)
      • WAA Focus on Asia: Photography Past and Present (2015)
      • Summer Tokugawa Japan: Multiple Voices, Multiple Views (2015)
      • WAA Crossing the Indian Ocean: Asia/Africa Connections (2015)
      • Workshop Children’s Literature and Young Adult Fiction and Non-Fiction (2015)
      • WAA New Worlds of Science: The Heritage of East Asis (2014)
      • Summer Teaching about China and Japan in Your Classroom (2014)