Don’t Let It Fade: Holding Onto the Magic of NCTE 2024

Over the past few years, NCTE has become a huge part of what fuels me as an educator. I’ve been blessed to not only attend but also to present, an honor that I never dreamed could become a reality. The four days of the conference are always full of learning, exploring, and connecting with colleagues and friends (not to mention filling my suitcase with new books!). Every year I come home with a full heart and a mind bursting with inspiration and ideas.

But then Thanksgiving hits: five days of cooking and cleaning and spending much-needed time with my family. Two years ago my entire family was hit with the flu the night I came home. This year we’re hosting Thanksgiving and moving into a new house. It always seems like NCTE starts to fade into the background before my suitcases are even unpacked and stowed away.

Knowing that the ideas I’ve gathered and the knowledge I’ve gained are so important and impactful, I’ve begun shifting my focus during the week between the conference and Thanksgiving to not just what I’ve learned but to how I’m going to sustain the learning once the dust from the holiday weekend settles.

This year I’m committing to taking a few intentional steps to share my learning and keep my new ideas flowing:

1. A Date with Myself. I’ve blocked off a full hour on my calendar next Monday to read back through my notes and the resources I collected in Boston. I want this time to be slightly unstructured, but I’m also going in with an agenda focused on some of my biggest takeaways:
   • After a Sunday session with Matt Glover, Carl Anderson, Towanda Harris, and Emily Callahan, how can I work with teachers to make more intentional decisions around immersing students in writing at the beginning of a new unit? What steps can I take with teachers and with students to reinforce how important it is to “read like a writer”?
   • Based on a Thursday session with a middle-grade author panel from the MG Authorcade, how can I reframe revision and feedback in our elementary and middle school classrooms? How can our classrooms become even more energized with the work of students serving as readers of their peers’ writing?
2. Connect with Colleagues. If there’s one thing I’ve learned as an educator, it’s that the best work is done by those who share a passion and collaborate to make great things happen for kids. I sent several text messages from the conference with snippets of ideas and a message of “Let’s connect after Thanksgiving!” I know that I need a partner or team of thinkers to follow up on:
   • The Thursday session I attended about “Being and Becoming Writers in an Age of AI” with Andy Schoenborn, Kristen Turner, Troy Hicks, and Jill Stedronsky (accompanied by two amazing students). This session focused on reframing the way we think about and teach writers using AI tools, and I walked away with both a different mindset and a new arsenal of tools that I’m excited to see in the hands of students. To do this work, though, I need the partnership of our district’s AI and Blended Learning Coordinator, as well as our Instructional Technology Specialist, to explore how all the pieces of the puzzle can fit together for our teachers and students.
   • A Saturday morning session with Kelly Gallagher on his newest book To Read Stuff You Have to Know Stuff (Heinemann, 2024) made me think in new ways about how we work with our intermediate and middle-grade students on reading nonfiction texts and responding to them in writing. My first step to do this work is to collaborate with our 4th and 5th grade coaching team and our middle school coaches to develop a plan for working in classrooms across our district.
3. Sneak in Reminders. It’s often the smallest moves that have the biggest impact, and time is a precious resource. To give myself little reminders about things I want to try, I’m making the following moves:
   • Setting up a Google calendar event after winter break to review the rough and final drafts of book excerpts shared by the MG Authorcade. This will coincide with narrative writing in several grade levels, and I want to make sure I circle back and share these resources.
   • Scheduling an email to myself to explore a feedback organizer shared by the MG Authorcade as well as a framework for scaffolding presented by Doug Fisher when I meet with our coaching team the second week of December.
   • Setting up a reminder on my phone for our department meeting every Thursday to remind myself to try the sketchnoting strategies I learned from Tanny McGregor, Paula Bourque, and Jarrett Lerner.

We know that the most impactful learning has to be purposeful and intentional, and that is what I’m striving for over the next few weeks. Life isn’t likely to slow down anytime soon, but I do have the power to set myself up for successfully retaining and implementing ideas with just a few simple strategies.

If you attended NCTE, what are some ways you’re planning to retain, share, and extend your learning? (And if you haven’t checked out Melanie’s takeaways from NCTE 2024 yet, make sure to read her post from earlier this week!)