Blog Archives

Cultivating Resilience in Reading Through Emotionally Intelligent Teach

Students are overwhelmed and anxious. They are showing up to class and not engaging in well-intentioned activities. How do teachers reach these students and re-engage them without losing patience in frustration? This presentation explores the complex relationship between affective factors and reading comprehension, tapping into how students engage with text on an emotional, motivational, and attitudinal level. This session will also explore how teachers’ own attachment styles align with our students’ attachment styles and how teachers can build on this knowledge to further student engagement in analyzing texts. Participants will walk away with practical strategies they can use to help students self-regulate in order to better their overall literacy

Session materials:

Stories in Every Classroom: Energize Your Teaching, Empower Your Stu- dents, and Help Save the World

Storytelling is the key to classroom learning. Why? Because it’s the key to human cognition, communication, and culture. If the English teaching pendu- lum has swung away from narrative and toward argumentation and analysis, it needs to swing back. The presenter proposes that telling stories—both oral and written—is one of the most powerful life skills a student can ever learn. The same goes for teachers, because stories are essential to a lively, humane, and knowledge-resonant classroom. And yet, storytelling is prone to pitfalls and misuses, and students need to learn about those, too. The presentation will include storytelling basics, practical story activities, and an overview of the storytelling crisis students and teachers face today—and what teachers can do about it.

Interactive Lectures and You

In this session, the presenter will demonstrate how interactive lectures (Nearpod, Peardeck, etc.) can introduce literature and literary elements, help students to analyze literature, make note-taking engaging, guide them through self-assessments of their writing, and more. Teachers are always looking to increase student engagement, deepen student reflection, and teach more effectively, and interactive lecture sites can help teachers to reach those goals. Teachers are invited to learn how they can incorporate this option into their current repertoire. Attendees are suggested to bring a laptop or tablet (a phone will work, too) to access the sites featured in the presentation.

Session materials: Nearpod

Make Time To Write!

Looking for new ways to energize your instruction through creative writing? This session will offer strategies for helping students gain a better understanding of point of view, punctuation, mood, narrative distance, and syntax by giving students the opportunity to write letters, spoken (and unspoken) dialogues, and poetry in a range of voices. Why not ask students to write a deferral letter in the voice of Meursault or imagine Jane Eyre and Janie Crawford as college roommates and write the dialogue when they first meet? Why not re-write the opening scene of Romeo and Juliet in a spaceship or re-imagine the soldiers in The Things They Carried as junior high school boys on a basketball court? Creative writing helps students unpack character motivation, and builds empathy and connection with different lived experiences.

Re-writing scenes from different characters’ perspectives can help students develop a deeper appreciation for the limitations and possibilities of the author’s selected point of view. Attendees will look at student samples and consider nimble creative writing possibilities for commonly taught novels in grades 9-12 as well as short stories, poems, and even independent reading. Writing can also be a great way to get students to connect with their classmates through sharing their writing with one another. The session will give teachers tools to strengthen students’ reading and writing skills and to establish a greater sense of community in the classroom.

Session Materials: Slides

Empowering Multilingual Learners: Leveraging Asset-Based Language and Effective Strategies in Mainstream English Classes

This presentation aims to explore the transformative potential of asset-based language frameworks and practical strategies for supporting multilingual learners in mainstream English classes. By shifting the focus from deficit-based models to acknowledging and harnessing the linguistic strengths and cultural assets of multilingual students, teachers aim to create a positive and inclusive learning environment. Attendees will gain insights into differentiated instructional techniques, effective assessment methods, and collaborative learning approaches, supported by real-world examples and success stories. The session encourages interactive participation, fostering a space for educators to exchange ideas and best practices, contributing to a more inclusive and effective approach to teaching English to multilingual learners in diverse educational settings.

Session materials: Slides

Future Leaders Speak Out on Refining Our Literary Traditions

Since literary traditions are ever-evolving, it’s crucial to engage with the perspectives of future educators on how to refine and redefine these traditions. This presentation will offer insights and research from pre-service teachers enrolled in the licensure program at Northern Illinois University. These emerging educators represent the next generation of literary leaders, and their voices are instrumental in shaping the future of ELA education. This panel features pre-service teachers at various stages of their licensure program, each offering a unique perspective on the refinement of literary traditions. Through interactive discussions, personal reflections, and practical examples, the presenters will delve into innovative approaches to teaching literature that honor tradition while embracing contemporary voices and perspectives. By amplifying the voices of future leaders in education, this session contribute to the ongoing dialogue about how literature can foster empathy, criticalthinking, and cultural understanding. The presentation will inspire conference attendees to reevaluate their own teaching practices and consider new ways to engage students with literary texts. Areas of focus include: 1) Reimagining canonical texts for diverse classrooms; 2) Integrating contemporary literature into the curriculum; 3) Using technology to enhance literary learning experiences; and 4) Empowering student voices through reader-response pedagogy.

Transforming Teaching Through Self-Care

We all know that teachers cannot “pour from an empty cup.” This rhetoric of self-care is all too common. But amid the fast pace of the school system, what are we actually supposed to do to refill our cups? The obstacles to self-care are made worse because much of what the dominant culture calls “self-care” simply helps us cope within antiquated systems rather than truly promote sustained well-being. This cultural confusion around self-care keeps teachers stuck in cycles of exhaustion, overwork, and disconnect. The steeply increasing rate of teachers’ chronic stress and burnout makes clear that we must prioritize real self-care practices—boundaries, self-compassion, power, and processing feelings of guilt. Centering our humanity in this way creates the groundwork for life-giving teaching practices, classrooms, and communities.

Drawing on ten years of teaching English in Illinois public high schools and the work of Paulo Freire, bell hooks, and Pooja Lakshmin, Sarah Bland holds space for teachers to use reflective writing to create a real self-care plan that will support their well-being throughout the school year. Further, participants will be invited to practice short guided meditations to foster self-compassion. Engaging with reflective writing and guided meditation in this way is an act of self-care, community care, and love that naturally shifts how we engage with ourselves, our students, our curriculum, and our school communities.

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Identity Cycles: SEL Integration in the ELA Classroom

Suggested: Bring a laptop with Google Suite

Together we will explore a curriculum rooted in identity for middle school students that empowers them to not only critically craft their own identities, but more thoroughly develop critical thinking skills in order to enact social change. The curriculum integrates social emotional learning with common core, while being non-linear and revolutionary. Texts, skills, and activities centered on identity allow students of color, in particular, to take control over their identity formation, and also allows white students the chance to authentically reflect and understand their own positions of privilege in contrast. Paired with seminars, collaborative writing, and individual reflections through an active revision process, this cyclical curriculum engages students by returning to concepts and skills in order to deepen their holistic development throughout the year. The intersection of SEL, ELA, and equity is of utmost importance as our students, and the world around us, continue to recover from the upheaval of a global pandemic. Corrine Ulmer has over a decade of direct experience developing and implementing advanced middle school curriculum that offers practical takeaways from Elise Zerega’s background in pedagogical research that explores the intersection of SEL and academic achievement.

Sharing our Humanity: Healing from Trauma Through the Power of Story

Healing from trauma can be scary, messy, and complicated. Fortunately, the power of story can help. We have been passing stories on to each other for centuries. Stories of hope and resilience are the best ones to share with each other. This session will cover some of the basics regarding trauma, including a review of the physiological responses (fight, flight, freeze). 
The session will include discussion about how the vicarious experiences of fictional characters help a reader know they are not alone, introduce new coping mechanisms, and provide a safe place to approach traumatic experiences. The presenter knows that all books are not created equal. Not only will she explain how some “bibliotherapy” books miss the mark, but she will introduce books that are much more effective. 
Expect lively read-alouds and group discussions about how the books can be used to teach SEL goals in general or toward healing from trauma. You will receive a link to a comprehensive book list, but you might also start filling your bookstore cart during the presentation! 

Cultivating the Next Generation of Teachers

A session to empower and celebrate the vocation of professional educator. We will celebrate what we do, brainstorm ways to celebrate young teachers (in particular) and brainstorm ways to keep young teachers in the field of education.

Session materials: Slides