Gerald Graff

Gerald Graff (born 1937) is a professor of English and Education at the University of Illinois Chicago. He received his B.A. in English from the University of Chicago in 1959 and his Ph.D. in English and American Literature from Stanford University in 1963. He has taught at the University of New Mexico, Northwestern University, the University of California, Irvine and University of California, Berkeley, as well as Ohio State University, Washington University in St. Louis, and the University of Chicago. He has been teaching at the University of Illinois Chicago since 2000.

Graff teaches both graduate courses on teaching undergraduate writing and undergraduate writing courses. He teaches writing courses with his wife, Cathy Birkenstein, who is a lecturer in English and received her Ph.D. in American literature. She created the templates that make up They Say/I Say, a composition textbook that gives students templates to use in their academic writing.

Also, while at the University of Chicago, Graff co-founded the Master of Arts Program in the Humanities (MAPH), a one-year interdisciplinary program, allowing students to take courses in philosophy, English, art history, and other fields. He was president of the Modern Language Association in 2008.