Friday General Session: Alison Bechdel
Alison Bechdel is the author of the bestselling graphic novel memoirs Are You My Mother? and Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic. In her talk, she described her journey writing her first memoir Fun Home and how the book explores her relationship with her father, her identity as a lesbian, and overall her coming of age. Fun Home also opened as a musical on broadway this past year and won five Tony Awards, including “Best Musical.” This graphic novel memoir would be a great text to add for coming of age units in E11, as well as critical approaches and work with identity for E12. Bechdel is an engaging, down-to-earth speaker.
Pressures and Pleasures: Women Academics Reflect on Choices, Challenges, and Work/Life Balance
In this professional development session, four professors shared their stories of starting in K-12 teaching and moving on to graduate work and teacher-candidate teaching. They also discussed balancing their personal lives and motherhood with their career goals. Key strategies included the idea of self-forgiveness, positive self-talk, and testimonial. This was an inspiring and real discussion on the issues women face trying to “do it all.”
Beyond the Classroom Walls: Examining Race, Literacy, and Sexual Identity in After-School Clubs
This session include three speakers who have worked with after-school clubs to provide safe spaces for youth to explore their identities. Each speaker discussed how literacy tools (i.e. journaling, Where I’m From poetry, curriculum-based reader’s theater) were necessary in the clubs’ and students’ development. In particular, one speaker shared how her GSA has written a handbook defining all of the language/vocabulary the group uses. This would be an excellent activity for our GSA, as well as a resource they could then share with staff and the student body.
- handouts:
The Folger Approach, Part 4: How and Why to Teach Shakespeare’s Real Language
This session reveal how much is lost when students exclusive use the the side-by-side “translations” of Shakespeare and included many strategies for helping reluctant readers inside the original words. Tips on how to modify the task, not the text, to meet the needs of all students. Use call and response/choral/kinesthetic reading of “rabbit hole” passages (in which the play is explicated, i.e. the prologue of R + J).
See Jamie for Handouts
Youth Participatory Action Research as Transformative Literacy Learning and Civic Engagement: Finding from the Field
"This session explores youth participatory action research (YPAR) as a literacy practice that enables critical and multimodal literacy learning, identity development, and civic engagement among students and teachers. YPAR researchers will explore its impacts and contribution to classroom and community literacy learning and English teacher education through critical qualitative studies."
Contacts:
- Speaker: Nicole Mirra University of Texas, El Paso - Literacy for Social Change: Youth as Critical Researchers and Community Advocates
“You don’t teach students self-love by saying to them, I love you. You teach self-love by putting students in situations to show them their own worth.” -Ernest Morrell
I would really love to develop YPAR as part of my instruction, but this talk was mostly theoretical.
Questions I have: What is narrative research? What are more examples of YPAR? How do teachers/admin get started to get the students started? I feel this would be a meaningful part of the E12 capstone, or a good vision for reaching more authentic audiences in students’ writing cross-curricularly.
Seeing Beyond Our Own World: Using Character Point-of-View Activities to Introduce Students to Critical Theory
"Applying critical theory to texts in the secondary classroom can help adolescent readers see beyond “the limits of their world.” These presenters draw from Lois Tyson’s and Deborah Appleman’s work to demonstrate how point-of-view activities can help critical theories, such as Marxism and feminism, become accessible and relevant for students." What questions do we ask with different lenses? What assumptions are revealed when we question our default lenses?
I know this is E12 work, but I wonder how we might scaffold some of this work earlier into EE10 or even E10 or EE9. Personally, I like the Lois Tyson text more because she discusses the relevancy of critical reading beyond literature and Appleman does not. I emailed Pam to see if she could order the department 2-3 copies.
Teaching Native American Speculative Fiction: Going beyond the Traditional Tropes of Horror, Dystopia, and Science Fiction
Using Native American speculative novels written for middle/high school and college levels, this teaching demonstration showed how we can use genre fiction to generate discussions on multiculturalism.
The Art of Inquiry: Curiosity, Responsibility, and Social Action
“Wisdom begins with wonder.” -Aristotle
"Curiosity, interest, and passion feed the creativity and imagination that enable our students to see a world without limit, but kids’ questions seem to end when school begins. How can teachers rekindle student curiosity? Our five panelists will share new ideas and new strategies for inquiry that leads to action."
- Strategies included SEE THINK WONDER charts, close reading images, reading our news for the stories that are there and the stories that aren’t, model your OWN curiousity. How do we unteach incuriousity? Genuis hour/ Google’s 20% model, etc.
- I used to think ________, but now I think _______.
- Before I read this I thought _________ but now I think _________.
“How do you vote with your feet? With your actions? With your inaction and silence?”
Presenters:
- Sara Ahmed Bishops School, San Diego, California - Social Justice: The Intersection of Curiosity and Inquiry
- Description: Partner Interview Activity Instructions
Critical English (Teacher) Education: Our Responsibility as English Educators in the Wake of Racial Violence
"This panel joins the peaceful protests inspired by the growing national discomfort over the persistent pattern of racialized abuse toward Black citizens. This session will model three 20-minute activities that respond to stereotypes, racial profiling, racial abuse, and other social injustices that affect Black youth (and other youth of color) on a day-to-day basis."
Importance of teaching white students to examine the power of privilege and whiteness
Racialized billboards activity and the rhetoric of ads that depict African Americans, rhetoric of shaming
H. Samy Alim’s work, Kehinde Wiley’s work --a New York-based portrait painter, who is known for his highly naturalistic paintings of people with brown skin in heroic poses.
Model for students by telling them the positive impact individuals of color have had on your own life personally
Mic.com: Young people deserve a news destination that offers quality coverage tailored to them. Our generation will define the future. We are hungry for news that keeps us informed and helps us make sense of the world.
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