Registration Now Open for 2019 Fall Conference

A Vision for the Future: Practices Designed for Success

Chaired by Joe Pizzo and Denise Weintraut

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2019

Kenneth R. Olson Middle School, Tabernacle, NJ

REGISTRATION NOW OPEN

As usual, we will have 3 dynamic sessions with presentations from a wide range of teacher educators sharing best practices. You will also hear from keynote speaker, Dr. Kristen Turner (more details below).

And new this year: Join us for an optional authors’ breakfast at 8am. Start the day off right with breakfast with over 20 authors!

Register now to ensure that you get the early registration rate. 

What is the future of literacy instruction? Whether in our classrooms, online, or with new AI technology on the horizon, change is inevitable, and we must prepare ourselves for the future.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Kristen Hawley Turner (@teachkht) – professor and director of teacher education at Drew University in New Jersey.  Her research focuses on the intersections between technology and literacy, and she works with teachers across content areas to implement effective literacy instruction and to incorporate technology in meaningful ways. She is the co-author of Connected Reading: Teaching Adolescent Readers in a Digital World (the focus of our Summer Book Study Slow Chat starting August 5th!) and Argument in the Real World: Teaching Students to Read and Write Digital Texts. She is also the founder and director of the Drew Writing Project and Digital Literacies Collaborative.

Educators at any level and at any phase of their career, including pre-service teachers, are encouraged to attend.

The conference is an affordable professional development opportunity. Conference registration includes lunch and an NJCTE membership. A separate Authors Breakfast featuring 20+ writers, 8am-9am, is planned for an additional charge (discounted with conference registration).

NJCTE BECKER AWARD COMMITTEE SEEKS NEW MEMBERS

The NJCTE Becker Award Committee is looking for members interested in joining our committee.  The Muriel Becker Award is the highest honor bestowed upon an author by NJCTE.  It has been given annually since the 1980’s to a writer deemed by the Becker Award committee to be someone who reflects the best of positive ideals that inspire young readers to high achievement. This definition is extended to include writers whose body of works (fiction, nonfiction, poetry or drama) have touched young adult readers, and those whose careers are just beginning to be recognized as exceptional. Recent winners include Ibi Zoboi, Jason Reynolds, Andrew Smith, and Matt de la Pena.

If you are interested in joining the committee, please fill out this interest survey by June 26th. The committee will work virtually this summer; we encourage any members who regularly read children’s and young adult literature to get involved. We hope to have all work done before the school year begins! This is a great way to contribute to NJCTE and be involved in the organization! PD hours will be awarded for participation.

Mark Your Calendars for the NJCTE Summer Professional Book Study!

by Oona Marie Abrams

I’ll never forget my first summer vacation as a teacher. On the morning after school closed, I boarded a plane to Hawaii, enjoying a two week long trip with my parents and sister. The year after that I took a trip to Florida with my teacher friends, and the year after that was my summer semester at the Breadloaf’s Oxford campus. One of my favorite summers was 2003, when I spent a month with a cohort of 25 other English teachers from across the country. We were recipients of an NEH Fellowship, living on the campus of Smith College, studying with artists in residence from a Shakespeare repertory company. Those summers were full of enriching travel, quality time spent with friends and family, and abundant reading. As this summer nears, my travel mostly involves driving the minivan circuit from band camp to tennis camp, from basketball games to swimming lessons, to the town pool in fair weather, and to the library on rainy days. Much has changed, but the reading is still abundant!

For some teachers, summer means working a second job. For others, it means being the primary caregiver for children who are home from school. There are so many great professional learning opportunities happening in July and August, but many of us simply aren’t able to attend them due to cost, work schedules or child care obligations. The good news is that no matter what your schedule might look like this summer, you can take time to read NJCTE’s selected professional book and join the virtual conversation whenever it’s convenient for you. This summer, our professional book is Connected Reading by Kristen Hawley Turner and Troy Hicks. Throughout the first two weeks of August, our slow chat on Twitter will launch one question about Connected Reading each weekday. Respond to the questions at any time, from any location. The questions will align with the book’s chronology, so you can read the entire book beforehand or a little each day over the course of the ten slow chat days. All of the questions will be posted to our blog and @NJCTENews in late July. Our book study will be a great way to prepare for the Fall Conference, where author Kristin Hawley Turner will be the keynote speaker.

Interested? You can purchase the print version or the e-book from the NCTE Store between July 1st and August 16th. NJCTE and NCTE members can use the code READ19 to receive a 15% discount. Mark your calendar, buy your copy of the book, and get ready to join our conversation on Twitter!