CONGRATULATIONS TO M. JERRY WEISS EARLY-CAREER TEACHER AWARD WINNER: SAMANTHA SHANE

Please join all of us at NJCTE in congratulating Samantha Shane, one of the 2018 M. Jerry Weiss Early-Career Teacher Award Winners.

Samantha Shane graduated from Montclair State University. During her time at MSU, she was Vice President of Kappa Delta Pi and the Teacher’s Club scholarship, which recognizes preservice teachers for their work at the undergraduate level.  She also worked as a tutor off campus. At this tutoring center, she developed their English program. After graduation, she worked at Dwight Morrow High School in Englewood, NJ, and Sparta Middle School in Sparta, NJ. She is currently teaching at Morris County School of Technology. She is also pursuing her master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction and hopes to continue to grow and learn as an educator. She is especially focused on infusing technology in the English classroom.

We look forward to Samantha’s contributions to NJCTE and to her continued success in  infusing English education with technology.

If you have a teacher whom you would like to nominate for this or another NJCTE award, please check out the criteria and nomination process on our website.

New Jersey Council of Teachers of English, the New Jersey state affiliate of NCTE, the National Council of Teachers of English

Congratulations to Marcia Holtzman Pre-Service Teacher Award Winner: Evan Dickerson

Please join all of us at NJCTE in congratulating Evan Dickerson, one of the 2018 Marcia Holtzman Pre-Service Teacher Award Winners.

Evan Dickerson is a writer, filmmaker, and emerging educator with a passion for storytelling. From a young age, he’s been enraptured with the art of narrative. He graduated summa cum laude from Montclair State University’s B.F.A. filmmaking program where he focused on screenwriting. His work developing original feature and television scripts garnered the attention of MSU’s School of Communication and Media who presented him with the 2014 Award for Excellence in Screenwriting. Evan has worked as a freelance writer, story editor, and production manager for various films throughout the New Jersey area. He’s also worked for Montclair Film’s education program since 2015 as a filmmaking and screenwriting instructor. He currently serves as Montclair Film’s curriculum coordinator, where he develops hands-on workshops, maintains the school’s high-tech media lab, and works closely with instructors to provide students with the most engaging and meaningful instruction.

It was during his time working with students aged eight-to-eighty that he found an affinity for teaching, and decided to return to Montclair State for a B.A. in English and an M.A.T. in Secondary English Education. Evan is currently completing his fieldwork at Bloomfield High School where he enjoys spreading the love of literature, art, and film with students eager to tell their own stories. As an educator, Evan’s goal is to synthesize technology and high-interest, hyper-relevant texts to foster a love of reading and writing while also promoting literacy, particularly in our digital age.

When he’s not in the classroom, you can find Evan at the movies, on the golf course, or in a pretentious little cafe, sipping free-trade coffee, while working on his next screenplay.

We look forward to Evan’s contributions to NJCTE and to his continued success in both film and English education.

If you have a teacher whom you would like to nominate for this or another NJCTE award, please check out the criteria and nomination process on our website.

Posted by Audrey Fisch, blog editor for NJCTE

New Jersey Council of Teachers of English, the New Jersey state affiliate of NCTE, the National Council of Teachers of English

Welcome to New Board Member Susan Chenelle

Please welcome NJCTE’s newest board member, Susan Chenelle.

Susan Chenelle is Supervisor of Curriculum and Instruction at University Academy Charter High School in Jersey City, New Jersey, where she taught English and journalism for several years. Her favorite days at work are those when she escapes her office and spends most of the day working and learning with teachers and students. She is the co-author of the Using Informational Text to Teach Literature series from Rowman & Littlefield with Audrey Fisch, with whom she has presented about informational text and cross-disciplinary collaboration at schools around New Jersey and conferences across the country. She earned her master’s degree in urban education from New Jersey City University, and she is now pursuing a doctoral degree at Montclair State University in Teacher Education and Teacher Development.

Susan was also honored by NJCTE in 2017 as Educator of the Year.

Posted by Audrey Fisch, blog editor for NJCTE

New Jersey Council of Teachers of English, the New Jersey state affiliate of NCTE, the National Council of Teachers of English

Welcome to New Board Member Denise Weintraut

 

Please welcome NJCTE’s newest board member, Denise Weintraut.

Denise Weintraut teaches ELA to middle schoolers at the Berlin Community School in the Berlin Borough School District. She is passionate about inspiring struggling readers to become engaged and literate thinkers who read for fun and to inform their lives. An advocate for the integration of technology in the classroom, she is an Apple Teacher and a Google Certified Educator, L1. She facilitates regional #CoffeeEduNJ chats in the South Jersey region and can often be found at area conferences and EdCamps. She also serves on the Board of the West Jersey Reading Council and believes that authors are rock stars. Committed to the principles of social and emotional learning, she strives to make her classroom an inclusive place where all students feel both welcomed and challenged. Chocolates and good books make her insanely happy!

You will have an opportunity to meet Denise at NJCTE’s upcoming spring conference, March 24, at Montclair University. As NJCTE’s membership chair, Denise will be working the registration table. Please take a moment to introduce yourself if you don’t already know Denise and welcome her to the NJCTE leadership team.

Posted by Audrey Fisch, blog editor for NJCTE

New Jersey Council of Teachers of English, the New Jersey state affiliate of NCTE, the National Council of Teachers of English

An Invitation to Write Banned Word Poetry

Greetings, NJCTE Blog Readers! This is your friendly and vigilant citizen activist English language arts educator, Pat Schall, returning with yet another suggestion for making your voices heard in a challenging political climate.

This time my suggestion for activism encourages more creativity and less correspondence and calls. Sound interesting? Hey, the holiday break should give you a little more time to charge those creative batteries.

Have you heard about the seven words/phrases the Trump administration put on a usage “hit list” for the CDC (Center for Disease Control)? The Washington Post reports that the CDC employees may not use these word/phrases in their writing: “vulnerable, entitlement, diversity, transgender, fetus, evidence-based, and science-based.”  How about entering a banned word poetry/poetic language contest with several options for creative expression using these forbidden words?

Recently, I was checking some social media postings and found an entry from Sara Freligh’s blog. Sarah is an author and a recipient of an NEA (National Endowment for the Arts) fellowship in poetry. She and Amy Lemmon are hosting a poetry writing contest using the CDC banned words. You will find specific guidelines for writing and submission in the blog post.

Freligh and Lemmon are flexible about the format and encourage “prose poems/microfiction, or even short plays. Forms that use repetition and/or use the required words in inventive ways are especially encouraged. Work may include visual or multimedia elements within the range of literary work.  Video or audio submissions should be accompanied by text transcript.” There are so many possibilities and formats, traditional and non-traditional. They advise writers that “poems will be accepted on a rolling basis for publication on the blog. One new poem by a different writer will be published each week day, Monday through Friday starting January 1, 2018.”

The idea of a “rolling basis for publication” appeals to me and may provide just the kind of incentive and flexible deadline a busy teacher/writer needs to participate and to take a stand against censorship that matches NCTE’s mission to preserve intellectual freedom.

NJCTE will host our Annual Conference on Saturday, March 24, 2018, at Montclair State University. This would be a good forum for sharing some of the poems our members submit to this contest, whether or not they are chosen to appear on the blog. Why not get your creative juices flowing and participate? Here is another chance to be a creative citizen activist and stand up for freedom of speech.

Enjoy the holidays, the break, and this opportunity to let your voice be heard!

Written by Pat Schall, NJCTE Board Member

Posted by Audrey Fisch, blog editor for NJCTE

New Jersey Council of Teachers of English, the New Jersey state affiliate of NCTE, the National Council of Teachers of English