Reflections From NCTE 2024

The annual convention for the National Council of Teachers of English has been an important part of my professional and personal life for many years. In previous years, I’ve shared a lot while I’ve been at the conference, but this year, I’m unsure of my sharing platforms– reestablishing those is a goal over the next few weeks. In the meantime, I’m mining my notes and sharing in a post-conference timeframe. Maybe the percolation and integration of all the incoming ideas and information is more potent than the characters I whipped out during a session. For sure, I was more present in the space of the Boston conference center.

Empowering Students With Writing

One of the first presentations I attended was Re-envisioning the Conditions of Writing Workshop in Order to Teach to Student Need, Equity, and Social Justice, presented by Doug Kaufman from the University of Connecticut and Tracey Lafayette, a teacher in Manchester, Connecticut. Many of the sessions emphasized empowering students, and this one especially nudged me to consider a few small and larger scale revisions to my thinking and my practices. 

Doug eluded to and later shared a slightly different approach to planning a minilession, suggesting the substitution of “the need of the class” for “learning objective.” I’ll be thinking about this as I write and revise curriculum. Is this a more responsive and less clinical or scripted approach? It could be. And maybe it could move the consumers of curriculum to a less linear approach, which is always a goal for me. 

Tracey shared a lot about her third-grade writers and their pathway to activism through writing. She posed the question, “If you were to ask your students why they are writing the piece they are writing, what would they say?”

“If you were to ask your students why they are writing the piece they are writing, what would they say?”

Tracey Lafayette

 It’s a powerful question, and one I consider a lot, but grapple with. Her approach of asking students what frustrates them, upsets them, angers them and what do they wish they could change led to strong essay, and, maybe even more importantly, ended up in an annual book she published called Lafayette Leaders, in which students use Canva to create their pages. Their pages included not only their essays, but their calls to action and next steps. What a way to empower students and activism. 

Tracey left me wondering– and I would love to talk through the idea with anyone who is interested– with the idea of beginning the year with an opinion writing unit instead of the traditional narrative one. Would students have an easier time thinking about things they’d like to change in the world? Would teachers learn a lot about students through what they’d like to be different? Maybe… 

A Couple of Language Shifts

Just as Doug nudged my thinking about the language of lessons for minilesson planning, Patty McGee suggested a slight but powerful language shift when planning small groups in her session, Not Forgotten: The Distinct Need  to Reestablish and Repurpose the Role of Small-Group Instruction in a New Instructional Era that she co-presented with Justin Stygles, a teacher-author from Maine.

What if, instead of planning based on what students need, we plan based on what students are ready for?

-Patty McGee

 What if, instead of planning based on what students need, we plan based on what students are ready for? For me, this language shift changes the mindset from a deficit approach to an asset-based approach, and I love that. Patty’s website is one of the most generous ones I know of, full of practical ideas and strategies for teachers to turn around in classrooms. 

Some Reminders

While I get new and fresh ideas about instruction and learning whenever I attend an NCTE conference, I’m also reminded of what matters and why; there are threads of validation I find throughout the presentations and language I can weave into my own that explains my work. Many years ago. Katie Egan Cunningham challenged conference attendees to approach students with a mindset of what can I learn from them instead of what should I teach them. 

What can I learn from them instead of what should I teach them?

Katie Egan Cunningham

Maybe because the focus of the 2024 conference was “Heart, Hope and Humanity”, the importance of responding to writers and the content on the page was a dominant beat. Along similar lines, Kelly Boswell’s reminders nestled in with Katie’s wisdom about learning from students. Kelly described and demonstrated the importance of sharing writing space with students, never leaning over them– that’s oppressive and dominant– , but instead looking up at them. I’ve seen enough pictures of myself in conferences with writers to know that I do this, but I’m not sure I coach it, and I’m not sure that I do it intentionally. Maybe one of my important takeaways from NCTE 2024 needs to be what I do intentionally, and not what I do naturally. Have I coached young teachers about the importance of learning from children and elevating them and their work? I’m not sure, but I will work on it more– another goal and takeaway from an important conference. 

I know that attending NCTE is a privilege, and I do my best to share what I learn with anyone and everyone who I can touch in some way, shape, or form. If you have ANY questions or interest in more about what I’ve written, please reach out. Also, if you are a reader who was at the conference, please consider sharing a highlight or two in the comments so that others benefit from the brilliance that was there, at well. Connecting with passionate educators fuels me now more than ever.