Join the IATE Leadership Team!
Please fill out the form below to attend the 2026 Winter Leadership Retreat. You will receive further information after submitting your form.
For questions, please contact IATE President Andrew Rodbro at arodbro@iateonline.org.
2026 IATE Winter Retreat
Date: 21 February 2026
Time: 9:00 am to 3:00 pm
Location: Moraine Valley Community College, Conference and Business Center
Light breakfast and lunch will be provided.
Sign up for updates from IATE for next year’s fall conference. You’ll receive announcements about submitting proposals, keynote speakers, featured sessions, and registration.
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USING CREATIVE WRITING TO UNLOCK YOUR STUDENTS’ INNER WRITERS
A workshop with creative writing education nonprofit Cosmic Writers
Many students identify as reluctant writers, but love to paint or play video games or design Dungeons and Dragons campaigns. When it comes to these students, creative writing education nonprofit Cosmic Writers has found that many of them aren’t “reluctant writers” as much as they are “writers who haven’t fount their niches yet.” The painter has the potential to become a visual poet; the gamer an interactive-fiction writer; and the DnD-er a creator of lushly-described fantasy worlds. And if you can link writing to the hobbies and skills that your students are already excited about, you can unlock their potential to become excited about writing, too.
In this 1-1/2 hour professional development workshop, we will discuss ways to use creative writing to help students recognize their inner writers and take pride in their communication abilities. We will also discuss how to integrate creative writing with standard English class content, such as literary analysis, to ensure that students are building core skills at the same time as honoring their creativity.
This virtual workshop will be conducted by Rowana Miller of Cosmic Writers, Inc.
Rowana Miller has a decade of experience working in writing education and writing young adult fiction. She is the founder and Executive Director of Cosmic Writers, a registered 501(c)(3) that provides children with the tools, knowledge, and opportunities to write creatively. Her debut novel, Secrets of the Blue Hand Girls, is forthcoming from Sourcebooks in Fall 2025. She writes about goblins, secret societies, and strange magic.
She has presented on literacy, creative writing education, and collaborative learning at conferences including those hosted by the National Council of Teachers of English, the American Physical Society Division of Fluid Dynamics, and the Reading & Writing Project at Mossflower. She has developed and run professional development for organizations ranging from the Pennsylvania Association of Independent Schools to the New York Public Library.
Registration is open! Space is limited, so register now!
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Let Us Know How We Did (and what we can do better)! We want the annual fall conference to be all it can be for our members (and we want as many members to attend as possible). Whether you attended the October 24-25, 20205, conference at Moraine Valley Community College or whether you were not able to be with us, please click the link above to offer your constructive feedback to the conference planning team. This survey will remain open until the end of November 2025.
2025 Conference Home Page
The annual IATE Conference took place on Friday, October 24 and Saturday, October 25, 2025, at Moraine Valley Community College. Click the link above to visit the Conference Home Page. Reach out to Conference Chair Delores_Robinson@ivcc.edu with questions.
Click HERE to view the online version of the 2025 Conference Program via Canva.
Presenters, please click HERE to submit conference presentation materials (slides, handouts, links) that will be made available to registered attendees of the Fall Conference.
Online Conference Schedule–with links to presenters’ session materials (if supplied)