First day at NCTE Conference in Baltimore

21 October

This week I have decided to join Kathy and three of her colleagues in coming to a huge conference in Baltimore for the National Council of Teachers of English, known as NCTE. We set off at 6am and arrived in Baltimore around 3pm, to a somewhat cooler temperature than in Arizona.

The plenary speaker I made it to today was George Takei who played Hikaru Sulu on the Starship Enterprise in the television series, Star Trek. George spoke about his family who were in an American Japanese Internment Camp during World War II. He also spoke very engagingly about his life, his belief in democracy, and about writing a graphic novel about his life.

There are over 5,000 registrants, and at any one time there are many events on, including publisher events and meals. I was very lucky to be invited to the Chronicle Book Middle Grade Author Dinner featuring Jon Scieszka and Steven Weinberg (author and illustrator of AstroNuts), Kate Messner (author of Insect Superpowers), Kari Anne Holt (author of Redwood and Ponytail), Rebecca Balcárcel (author of The Other Half of Happy).

It was held at a beautiful old restaurant in Baltimore, in a function room. The authors and illustrators were spaced around the long table among the other guests. Each author/illustrator spoke for a few minutes about their new books between courses, and in between we all chatted and I met some delightful people including several writers, the publishers, elementary teachers,, a blogger and a children’s literature professor. It was a real honour to be there!

Comments

NCTE Day 2: Native American authors and publishing

Today at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference I went to some really interesting sessions, including a panel of female authors in the evening, including Newbery medal winner Megan Medina who chaired a session of three young female authors, including Brittany Luby, a Canadian writer of Anishinaabe-kwe heritage whose recent picturebook, Encounter , is about a first contact between an indigenous boy and a French boy on a sailing ship. I met Brittany after the session and was interested to hear more about her next book which will be bilingual. This linked to another session I had attended earlier in the day with four Native American authors entitled ‘Bringing indigenous voices into your classroom’. The chair of the panel was not American Indian, but a teacher who works in a school with Native American children. She began by quoting the data on books by and about people of colour and from First/Native Nations published for children and teens compiled ...

End of Week 2

At the end of my second week at the University of Arizona, I am starting to settle in. I now have a staff ID number and a Staff ID card which has allowed me email, library and internet access, and I have joined the university recreation centre where I am able to swim and attend yoga classes. I am really enjoying these facilities! While here I have the opportunity to sit in on a couple of courses. I have already mentioned the one called the Critical Content Analysis of Text and Image. This last week we used some of the techniques we’ve learned to examine some of the books in the U.S. IBBY Outstanding International Book Awards. This award has been awarded since 2006 in an effort to encourage US publishers to publish books published outside the United States, thus allowing US children to develop global awareness. One of my favourites from last week comes from Tara Press in India. It’s called Hope is a GirlSelling Fruit by Amriti Das. Not only is the art ...

JoLLE Winter Conference and Atlanta Georgia

One of the highlights of my Fulbright has been the people I’ve met, and the opportunities to present in a variety of settings. I recently attended the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia to present a workshop about bilingual picturebooks as part of the JoLLE (Journal of Language and Literacy Education) Winter conference. I focused on Māori-English bilingual picturebooks and the participants engaged well. My host while there was Dr. Petros Panaou who took this photo in which I look like I’m talking to Captain Cook as I gave a short history of Aotearoa New Zealand prior to looking at the picturebooks. The next day I had the great pleasure of attending a plenary given by Dr. April Baker-Bell (Michigan State University) talking about her framework of an Anti-Racist Black Language Pedagogy. It was inspiring. On the Sunday I was leaving from Atlanta, and Petros and his family took me to do some sightseeing before I left. We visited the National Park dedica...

Nicola on Fulbright in Arizona

Search This Blog