Author Archives: Angelo

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2015 FALL BOARD MEETING – SATURDAY, OCTOBER 17^TH  

Kim called the meeting to order at 2:05 p.m.

Standing Committee Reports:

Constitution:

Norm said he will continue to work on it and sent it to the board in “hunks” for approval.

Old Business:

Nominating Committee:

Betsy needs to form a committee, which will work via email. Callie Sears (Mississippi Valley), Jessie Anderson (Southern), and Angelo Bonnadonna (Metro South) volunteered and were accepted. Betsy will send information out on the listserv for nominations.

IATE Website:

Angelo gave a report on the e-commerce transactions. He said it’s been a relatively smooth transition, and most of the transactions have been via credit card. We used Stripe (fees of $363) and PayPal to process transactions. Per Herb’s report, the PayPal expense was around $1300, so we should probably look into it. We have some checks outstanding as well. Angelo said he’d like to be the webmaster if that is okay with the board. Barb proposed he be appointed webmaster, and Betsy seconded it. Motion carried. He also had several presenters volunteer to give their materials from the conference. He will take and archive the information.

E-Newsletter:

We need to hear from Cris Embree about transitioning to this format, and Kim will follow up with her. Per Angelo, we have a member-restricted area on the website for items such as this. We also need the conference form online and available in print, but that probably won’t happen until the fall. Per Marilyn, we should have a column on member achievements. Angelo or Barb will request blogging ideas from members.

New Business:

2016 Conference:

Per Carol, we need to get featured speakers for the upcoming conference on the website as soon as possible. Since it’s in Bloomington/Normal, perhaps we can reach out to State Farm. Jan mentioned Carol Jago as a speaker. Mark said she would speak at the upcoming conference.

Barb asked if we were going to change the format, since we’re doing a full day (until 4 p.m.) on Saturday next year. Carol said it can be different from what it has been, that people really like sessions so perhaps fewer speakers and more sessions. Per Jan, her colleagues (one is Sally Perry) do a program entitled “At the Movies,” which would be good for Saturday afternoon.

Barb’s requests for the conference:

• just needs help from Kim and Mark
• Deb reached out to her about magnets and postcards, so a huge thank you to her for her promotion and materials
• Thanks in advance to Angelo who will put the items on the website

Ideas from the board:

• Per Barb’s discussion with Angelo and Carol, we need to reach out to people. We wait for people to come to us
• Per Jen Hudson, post conference on all ROE’s websites in the state
• Per Marilyn, try to attract more reading people
• Per Carol, vendors don’t have to be book companies
• Per Cassie, contact Bloomington/Normal school districts to get as many attendees as possible
• Per Angelo, we need to find ways “not to reinvent the wheel.”
  • Contact lists of names and emails
  • Committee for corporate sponsorships

Per Jan, we can use local and writing project people

• Rebecca Hollsworth would probably help
• Also mentioned Kristin Strong and Mike Soares from Pontiac HS

Kim will send out on the listserv a Google Docs sheet to add contacts from our area, and Angelo will put the forms on the Executive Board part of the website.

2016 Awards:

We need Teacher of Excellence, Emerging Leader, and Intellectual Freedom. Deb and Betsy are working on clarifying the process for nominations so that every year we generate nominations and have candidates. Per Jan, we need to have more issues to qualify for the publication award. Per Cheryl, we need to be thinking about/discussing handling of electronic publications and content so it is unique from our printed items.

Other:

Per Kim, Tarrie needs to pay for our domain name renewal because it expires in February.  It costs $180 for five years. Betsy made a motion for approval, and Mark seconded it. Motion carried.

Per Carol, Kim Kotty, Andrea Cobbett, and Susan Lamont are also interested in becoming involved.

The Leadership Academy and spring Executive Board meeting with be on March 5^th to coincide with the South Central/Central District mini-conference in Decatur at MacArthur High School.

Kim adjourned the meeting at 3 p.m.

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2015 FALL BOARD MEETING – THURSDAY, OCTOBER 15^TH   

Betsy called the meeting to order.

Conference Site Committee:

Per Jean Black, our next two conferences are in Bloomington-Normal: October 20-22, 2016 and October 19-21, 2017. Jean had two proposals returned to her for 2018:

• Embassy Suites in East Peoria
• Marriott Chicago Northwest (Hoffman Estates)
  • Per Jean, this hotel is gorgeous
  • One of the top 10 Marriotts in North America
  • They will comp one room for every 20
  • Reduced rates for rooms ($110)
  • 2 suites offered at group rate
  • Complimentary Wi-Fi
  • Function space rental waived based on $300/day in food and beverage
  • Have to fill 80 rooms

Jean’s suggestion was for the Marriott Chicago for 2018 (only gave us a one-year proposal at this time). Deb made a motion to accept for 2018 and authorize Jean to get 2019 proposal(s). Kim seconded it, and the motion carried.

The board also discussed doing a survey about convention sites or possibly having a joint conference with another organization. Jan suggested perhaps the Missouri teachers for a conference in St. Louis.

Per Jean, we still need to include the paper registration form in the newsletter as well. We need to have the program chair send it to Cris Embree.

2^nd Vice President’s Report:

Mark asked for three people to fill open spots at the registration desk. The last registration number he had was 122. The agenda for the business meeting had to be put together, including the slate: President Kim Musolf; 1^st Vice President Mark Sujak; 2^nd Vice President Barb Chidley; Secretary Jennifer Gouin; and Treasurer Terrie Dullum. Betsy will also ask for nominations for NCTE awards.

Treasurer’s Report:

Genevieve gave the report. Per Herb, he was missing two bank statements (none sent to him since July), so he’s not sure the current numbers are accurate.

Newsletter:

We need an interview with our nominee Jillian Schneider for the NCTE Teacher of Excellence. Deb noted that perhaps the candidate should have attended the IATE conference the year before they are nominated. We decided to table and return to the topic at a later date.

Secretary’s Report:

Jennifer Gouin presented the spring meeting notes for approval. Barb made a motion to accept them, and Dianne Chambers seconded it. Motion carried.

1^st Vice President’s Report:

Kim said that perhaps we should send a letter about accepted presenters to their superintendent/principal. Per Deb, we could ask for an administrator’s name/address on the proposal form. Genevieve suggested that we do certificates for presenters as well. Our CPDU accreditation was approved; per Jan it was a great deal of work.

District Leader Coordinator Report:

Carol Medrano mentioned two events that had already occurred. Carol, Norm and Angelo held the 1^st Larry Johannessen Memorial Lecture. Carol Jago and Betsy spoke. Mark and Betsy also presented. Per Carol, she has a banner than can be used for other mini-conferences. Cheryl had a one-day conference with 63 people in attendance, the largest they’ve had. Jessie was a major organizer of that event. They had three main speakers and three breakout sessions. They used their ROE to give CPDUs and had them post the event on the ROE’s electronic bulletin board and their listserv. Jennifer Hudson, South Central district leader, is hosting an event at her school, MacArthur High School in Decatur, on March 5^th. She will be working with the Central District as well (Michelle Ryan and Jennifer Gouin). The $25 cost will include membership, as well as a main speaker and breakout sessions. Jennifer Hudson needs proposals and people to peer review. Deb has nametags and a checklist.

Deb Will will now be North Lakes district co-leader with Carrie Thomas. Two years ago they successfully collaborated on a conference. Deb is also on her ROE’s Advisory Board.

Per Cheryl, the ROE will get information to the younger demographic and those at the middle and jr. high levels.

Special Projects Report:

Deb had buttons for us to wear and give out during the conference. For Barb’s conference she has “Save the Date” postcards and magnets to be left out at the registration desk. In addition, she reminded us to wear our IATE shirts on Friday. Limited numbers were also available for purchase at the registration desk.

Betsy adjourned the meeting.

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SLATE report for Illinois Association of Teachers of English

March 5, 2016

(Student and faculty literacies made headlines since my last report to you in 10/15 in such large numbers that I include no citations here.  Anyone who wishes references – please write me at mjms@ntcource.com, and I will send you at least one relevant essay, article, tape.  Only one source is never sufficient, I know.

ALSO, the IATE Facebook page contains posts related to much that has been observed and written about.  A scroll through its back-posts provides a kind of history.)

Just in the week of March 1, 2016:

1. Carolina teacher fired because of selfies on cellphone.
2. Virginia’s state legislature near passage of requirement for trigger warnings of “sexual content” in school readings.
3. of Missouri professor M. Click fired for treatment of photographer.
4. Hawkins, ex-professor at Wheaton College, hired to do Race/Religion research at University of Virginia.

Now, more generally.

Student (K-16) newspapers and journals expect “something” each year, but the (1988) Hazelwood School District et al v. Kuhlmeir et al damped-down student journalistic speech.  There are signs of renewed student journalists’ activism: who controls this speech?

I think we need to realize that this is complicated.  One person’s priority may well intersect (alert – new buzz word!) with another’s – and both may be right in some regards.  I don’t believe it’s a matter of relativism (as some might have it), nor is it only a matter of race or gender or class or privilege (the new toxic word!).

Here’s what I call “a for-example.”  Google “Laura Kipnis” and spend 30 or 40 minutes, more if you’ve got it, reading the entries just on the first page.  Kipnis is a tenured professor at Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, and she writes for academics as well as the more general public.  Here’s a partial list of the speech issues that drive this story:  academic freedom; political correctness; right to privacy; competing “facts;” Title IX; sexual freedom; women who “lean in;” educational institutions’ procedures surrounding/addressing these issues – – these often seem at odds.  Add your own issue to my list after you read several of the accounts.

When the concept “social justice” emerged as a major topic among English teachers and professors (see the NCTE guidelines on its site), I believe everything seemed fairly straightforward.  That is no longer the case.  Our SLATE is fuller and more problematically interesting than it has been for decades.

Marilyn J. Hollman, Ph.D.
SLATE representative, Executive Board
Illinois Association of Teachers of English

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[it-exchange-member-content membership_ids=”1296″]Executive Secretary’s Report and Bulletin Report
March 2016

As always we thank English Department leaders Professors Chris De Santis, chair, and our associate chair, Katherine Ellison And most of all, we thank Maegan Gaddis, who orders, arranges, and supports all our endeavors. My constant thanks go out to her for her devoted work with IATE. Again, ISU’s English Education director is now Lisa Thetard, former BHS English teacher.

The IATE Bulletin continues to thrive. Publication Unit assistant director, Holms Troelstrup, has settled in and is now at work on final touches for the Spring 2016 issue.  Julie Cheville, Professor in the English Department, will be taking over the editor’s task in 2017. She will shadow me this year as we move through the issues and then take the reins in Spring 2017. That issue is pretty much finished, so her first issue will be for Fall 2017, the Young Writers’ issue.

See my note in the Newsletter for my description of NCTE Affiliate activities. It was so exciting to see Illinois folk in Minneapolis in force and ISU’s own Doug Hesse speaking as Program Chair and future President (some of you may not know that Doug was at ISU for many years before moving to Denver. My deep thanks go to Betsy Kahn for her help and attention to the suggested guidelines for IATE future planning. She gave up her “free” time at NCTE to work on this document.

I continue to coordinate the judging for the NCTE-sponsored Norman Mailer awards for high school teachers’ fiction writing. Any volunteers to review the high school teachers’ fiction pieces, please let me and Carrie Stewart (Carrie Stewart <CStewart@NCTE.ORG>) know. We always need readers, and I thank those of you who are now a part of the team.

Membership numbers are on the back of this report.

Respectfully,

Janice Neuleib, Executive Secretary[/it-exchange-member-content]

Literacy for the 21^st Century: Filling Gaps & Building Bridges

Schedule
 

Keynote

9:00 –10:30              Creating a Culture of Literacy

Jeri Callaway – Freedom Writers

Session One

10:40 – 11:30          Effective Student-Led Writing Centers

Kim Kotty – Fenwick High School

Georgia Schulte – Glenbard West High School

The writing center empowers students to take control over their own writing, to value their own ideas, and ultimately feel confident about their choices as a writer. This session will discuss best practices for planning, staffing and training student writing tutors and share how to use student-led writing centers to undergird the work of the classroom teacher.

10:40 – 11:30          Teaching the Holocaust Through Literature

Jill Rembrant

This session will help language arts teachers help their students understand what historical events took place that led up to the deportation of Jews to the death camps and the Final Solution. Students will examine primary resources, including visual history testimony, art and diary entries in order to understand this difficult topic before they meet the victims of Nazi terror. In this way, they can begin to examine the concept of how choices made then and today  shape the world in which we live.

10:40 – 11:30          We Are All Thinking Teachers

Lynnette Rotramel

Literacy in today’s digital world is more complicated than reading and writing. It requires making meaning of a myriad of messages. How do we move beyond covering content in order to develop critical thinking skills, cross curricular lines, and help our students make meaning of increasingly multimodal messages? Memorization of information is no longer the goal of education. Literacy means making sense of the information that is at our fingertips. Feel confident to support the reading and thinking skills of your students in this interactive presentation designed to help you to teach reading strategies and prepare your students for 21^st century literacy. Applicable for reading and content teachers in grades 4-12.

11:40 – 12:20 LUNCH

Session Two

12:40 – 1:30             Many Voices, Many Truths: Building Bridges to the World, One Poem at a Time

Norman Boyer – Saint Xavier University

Poems from around the world are an ideal way of filling gaps in global awareness and building bridges with the world in our classrooms.  This presentation will introduce you to short, teachable Polish, Arabic, Persian, Latin American, Chinese, and Japanese poems.  They will be read in the original language by native-speaking friends and colleagues as recorded by the presenter. 

12:40 – 1:30             Creating Epic Writing Rubrics

Callie Stanley, Mona Busch, Michele Amato, Casey Kennett, Hayley Hoffmeyer

In this interactive session, participants will focus on the qualities of an instructional writing rubric including research supported best practices with rubrics. This will include strategies for using a single rubric over an extended period of time and for multiple assignments, using a rubric instructionally rather than just in a summative way, using a rubric to guide conferencing with students, and using rubrics to support writing across all content areas. Participants will practice strategies for appropriate rubric use, create a multifunctional writing rubric to use with their students, and leave with other rubric resources that they can use in their teaching.

12:40 – 1:30             Video Games in the English Classroom

Donna Binns – Eastern Illinois University

In this interactive session, participants will learn about reading and writing with video games.

Session Three

1:40– 2:30                Connecting Literature to Life: Interdisciplinary Approaches in the English Classroom

Kim Kotty – Fenwick High School

Georgia Schulte – Glenbard West High School

Though schools subjects are neatly stratified into discreet subjects, the world is not. This session will offer ideas for how to authentically make connections between the literature we teach and the modern world in which we live. It will discuss how to incorporate the media of our day to day lives– primarily advertising, television, and music– both as primary and parallel texts. 

Session Three, Cont’d

1:40– 2:30                Accept the Challenge

Deb Will – Zion Benton High School

Young adult literature has gained popularity, but selecting texts that can not only be read for enjoyment but also studied as literature can be difficult.  I present a selection of texts that have literary value and may be incorporated into English classrooms.  I include books both students and teachers will love!

1:40– 2:30                Analyzing and Writing Narratives

Mark Sujak – Morton East High School

Both the Common Core and the PARCC exam place importance on narrative skills that are often overlooked in the ELA classroom. This session will look at Common Core and PARCC aligned techniques to both analyze and write narrative fiction and non-fiction memoirs.

Session Four

2:40 – 3:30               Read, Think, SPEAK: Using YA Literature in Nontraditional High School Disciplines

Gretchen Zaitzeff and Jeff Wollenweber – U-High

Learn how University High School has incorporated classic and award-winning YA literature in its Freshman Wellness and AP Calculus curriculums. Discuss the possibilities of collaborating with your school’s librarian and other colleagues to build cross-curricular support for improving literacy while meeting state learning standards. Brainstorm ways to embed literacy skills in STEM and other non-traditional courses.

2:40 – 3:30               I Can Name that Theme in 6 Words (or Fewer)

Kristin Runyon – Charleston High School

I had an AHA! moment last year when I realized my students could name a thematic topic, such as appearance versus reality or the American dream, but they could not describe what we the readers were supposed to learn about that thematic topic (the life lesson). I will share with you two activities, the Literary 3×3 and the Six-Word Memoir, that require students to choose the most accurate words to concisely state a life lesson. I will also share a debate strategy, Thunderdome (yes, Mad Max style), in which the students have to support their choices.

2:40 – 3:30               Teaching News Literacy in the English Classroom

Elizabeth Marino – News Literacy Project

News literacy teaches students how to sort fact from fiction and how to be responsible news consumers and creators.This session will give English teachers an overview of news literacy, practical tips on how to integrate news literacy into ELA middle and high school classrooms, and a variety of resources to begin using right away with students.