Report from NCTE

from Mrs. Jones

I had an amazing time at this year's National Council of Teachers of English convention!  I traveled to St. Louis to meet thousands of English teachers from all over the country.  Also attending the convention were writers of children's books, experts in education theory, publishers, and (oddly) cheerleaders. Lots and lots of cheerleaders. The NCTE was sharing a convention center with a large cheerleading competition, which was a hilariously awkward mix of people. 

Jacqueline Woodson speaks to a huge crowd of teachers.
She was amazing!

One of my favorite teaching sessions had to do with alternative ways of grading students. What if there were no zeroes? What if student grades came from the skills they've mastered, and not from the assignments they've completed? What if teacher feedback was for guiding and helping students, not for judging them? What if grades came from growth, not just from mastery? What if students negotiated their own grades based on their learning? I left that session with my brain swirling with ideas. I'm still thinking about how to put some of those ideas into action, and I'll want to do some reading and research, but I'm very curious about some of these new ways of thinking about grading.

Me getting an autographed copy of Miles
Morales from Jason Reynolds!
I'm pretty sure that means we are best
friends now.

One of my favorite author sessions was a panel discussion with the authors of Flying Lessons and Other Stories.   This anthology of short stories came from the We Need Diverse Books movement, and the authors had a lot to say about how important it is for young readers to see their own lives reflected in the books they read, at least some of the time.  I left with a very high opinion of Soman Chainani, and determined to try again with the second School for Good and Evil book, which I got angry at and refused to finish a few years ago.

I tried to resist the temptation to spend all of my time hanging around in the publishers' room asking for author autographs, but I did get to meet Nikki Grimes and Jason Reynolds, and also saw Angie Thomas, Victoria Jamieson, Laurie Halse Anderson, and an amazing assortment of other great writers, as well as some new writers whose books I'll add to the classroom library - in some cases, not until after I get to read them first!  Publishers love introducing good new books to teachers, and I made good use of my time to get as many good books for the classroom library as possible!

Thanks to every student who worked hard and was kind to our guest teacher while I was away, allowing me to have this great opportunity to learn.

I brought back so many books that I built a book fort!