2022 Middle Level Election Results - National Council of Teachers of English

Middle Section Election Results

2022

NCTE Middle Section Steering Committee

 

Middle school ESL teacher, Lockhart, Texas. Specialty Area(s)/Area(s) of Expertise: multilingual education, writing workshop, culturally sustaining pedagogy. Membership(s): NCTE, Heart of Texas Writing Project, Somos Escritoras. Award(s): Early Career Educator of Color Leadership Award (2021); Dollar General Biliteracy Grant; A+ Educational Foundation. Publication(s): Mi Todo para los Estudiantes Inmigrantes. Program Contribution(s): presentations at NCTE, Bank Street.

How has NCTE provided a professional home for you?

NCTE has provided a professional space where I joyfully go to become inspired as a classroom educator. NCTE is also a place where I seek out professional guidance as I navigate the goals and dreams I have for my students and our classroom. In a big way, NCTE has become a sanctuary where I feel seen and heard within my deepest ambition as an educator, but importantly as an educator of color and to multilingual students.

How does your current work in your career, community, and/or classroom contribute to NCTE’s mission and vision, and demonstrate alignment with NCTE’s commitment to equity and justice? How have your personal strengths and experiences contributed to making positive change(s) in the profession?

As a multilingual educator of literacy, I seek to provide my students with a quality education through reading and writing. I have learned in working with my multilingual students that a community of literacy is possible when you put students and their communities first. I strive to provide my students with the tools necessary to discover and navigate their voice for greater change and toward audiences who can be impacted by their multiliterate gifts.

What is your rationale for seeking this office? What would you like to accomplish while in office?

As a multilingual educator at the middle school level, I believe in our students’ access to literacy and our educators’ ability to uphold and amplify the literacy gifts our students bring into our classrooms and communities. As a Middle Level Section Steering Committee member, I intend to lead by actively sharing the resources of NCTE within educational communities while encouraging leadership in our literature field and creating avenues that support our NCTE values and movement.

Eighth-grade English language arts teacher, San Bernardino City Unified School District, California (10 years); demonstration teacher; curriculum writer; equity/antiracist PD developer and trainer; mentor teacher; AVID Umoja instructor; SBTA union representative; ASCD Emerging Leader-2021; California ASCD Committee member: PD and Products and Services Committees; The Educator Collaborative Associate Class of 2021. Formerly: ELA department chair, multidisciplinary team leader. Areas of Expertise: literacy instruction, culturally sustaining pedagogies, ABAR instruction. Memberships: NCTE, CATE, ASCD, CASCD, The Educator Collaborative. Awards: 2020–21 San Bernardino County Teacher of the Year. Publications: “Reading for Love and Liberation” (post on The Educator Collaborative’s Community Blog). Program Contributions: presentations at CATE, CAAASA, SBCUSD, CLS.

How has NCTE provided a professional home for you?

NCTE has provided me with a home by connecting me with people, actual human beings who believe that literacy instruction can and should be revolutionary, helping me to find spaces in the grand educational sphere of academia where my voice, identity, presence, and expertise matter. NCTE allows me to be a part of a collective call for better, for excellence, and for liberty for all learners through literacy instruction and advocacy.

How does your current work in your career, community, and/or classroom contribute to NCTE’s mission and vision, and demonstrate alignment with NCTE’s commitment to equity and justice? How have your personal strengths and experiences contributed to making positive change(s) in the profession?

My work is heavily steeped in equity/educational justice. Every unit that I teach honors marginalized voices and experiences and centers those from the global majority. NCTE’s mission to improve teaching and learning of English at all levels is reflected in my commitment as a mentor teacher and PD trainer/developer. My personal strengths lie in my community and how we hold each other up. I would like to sharpen and leverage that strength through NCTE.

What is your rationale for seeking this office? What would you like to accomplish while in office?

Middle grades are often overlooked in pedagogical discussions. I want to help push middle grades forward. I hope to accomplish the task by helping to find the voices that need to be heard in ELA and amplifying them. I want to help build new leaders in ELA and draw attention to the needs of middle school English teachers and learners. I believe that being a member of this committee is a step in that direction.

NCTE Middle Section Nominating Committee

 

Reading specialist, Jefferson Middle School, Missouri; doctoral candidate, Reading Education, University of Missouri-Columbia; Classroom Representative, LLA; board member, MMLLA. Formerly: Middle and high school language arts teacher for twenty years; regional NCTE representative, Jefferson Parish Public Schools. Areas of Expertise: Filipinx YA literature; graphic novels; adolescent readers. Memberships: NCTE, LLA, MMLLA, ILA, NEA. Awards: Heinemann Fellows; Distinguished Alumni, Columbia College; CMNEA Teacher of the Year; Outstanding Middle/Junior High Educator of the Year, Columbia Fund for Excellence. Publications: coauthored pieces in Talking Points; Reclaiming Literacies as Meaning Making: Manifestations of Values, Identities, Relationships, and Knowledge; and Literacy Today; student editor, Literacy, Research, Theory, Method, and Practice. Program Contributions: presentations at NCTE, LLA, ILA, Write to Learn.

How has NCTE provided a professional home for you?

As my professional home, NCTE provides space for me to connect with and learn from colleagues. NCTE has consistently offered resources to help me advocate for students and teachers, nurturing my passions for literature and teaching. In recent years, I have turned to NCTE in my goal to be an antiracist educator. Whether through the Convention, service or learning opportunities, or social media, NCTE provides support that helps me to be a better educator.

How does your current work in your career, community, and/or classroom contribute to NCTE’s mission and vision, and demonstrate alignment with NCTE’s commitment to equity and justice? How have your personal strengths and experiences contributed to making positive change(s) in the profession?

NCTE’s mission and vision provide me with clarity. Whether as a teacher-educator, in teaching middle schoolers, or as a district equity trainer, I work to model how I, as a colearner in our learning communities, provide “access, power, agency, affiliation, and impact for all learners.” I work to provide insight and strategies to our team and teachers to show diversity, equity, and inclusion can and must be a daily part of good language arts instruction.

What is your rationale for seeking this office? What would you like to accomplish while in office?

The Middle Level Section Nominating Committee’s work is crucial to ensuring we continue to attract and nurture diverse, action-oriented leaders. The opportunity to do this service work speaks to my dedication to middle school students and educators. I would be honored to help identify and select candidates who can help us navigate the unique difficulties the pandemic and anti-CRT voices put upon us and help move us toward a more equitable education system and world.

Eighth-grade English teacher; Western Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English (WPCTE) Vice President; Western Pennsylvania Writing Project (WPWP) Teacher-Consultant; curriculum and instruction doctoral student at Indiana University of Pennsylvania (IUP). Formerly: high school English teacher. Membership(s): NCTE, WPCTE, Pennsylvania Council of Teachers of English and Language Arts (PCTELA), NCTE Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar (ATEG), Association for Middle Level Education (AMLE), Pennsylvania Association for Middle Level Education (PAMLE), WPWP, National Writing Project (NWP), Pennsylvania Association for Educational Communications and Technology (PAECT). Program Contribution(s): presentations at NCTE, WPCTE, PCTELA, PAMLE.

How has NCTE provided a professional home for you?

NCTE has provided a professional home for me since the very beginning of my official teaching journey. My undergraduate university has a student affiliate that I became involved in during my first year. I went on to lead the organization and attend the NCTE Annual Convention each year. My love and connection with NCTE started early, and it has continued strongly throughout my career. I appreciate the community, opportunities, and learning experiences that NCTE provides.

How does your current work in your career, community, and/or classroom contribute to NCTE’s mission and vision, and demonstrate alignment with NCTE’s commitment to equity and justice? How have your personal strengths and experiences contributed to making positive change(s) in the profession?

One of my passions is improving the teaching and learning of English. I find joy in leading my local affiliate because it allows me to work with others to improve our practice. I love sponsoring literacy experiences for students to inspire them to become passionate about literacy and to connect to literacy in their own ways. I also pride myself in creating opportunities for all students to connect with others outside of our school.

What is your rationale for seeking this office? What would you like to accomplish while in office?

As part of the Middle Level Section Nominating Committee, I would be a member of the group who selects possible candidates for vacancies in the Middle Level Section Steering and Nominating Committees. This office would allow me to have input in the educators who are chosen to further lead NCTE and all of its middle level members. I would like to further the NCTE mission and vision through selecting possible candidates who are forward thinking and inspirational.

Seventh-, eighth, and twelfth-grade English and CIHS composition teacher, Fosston, MN; Minnesota Council of Teachers of English executive secretary; Voices from the Middle reviewer. Formerly: MCTE middle level chair and president; fifth through eighth grade English teacher, Ponemah, MN; eighth-grade English teacher, Louisville. Specialty Areas: critical literacy, thinking routines, arts integration. Memberships: MCTE, NCTE. Publications: Poetry in Statement; dissertation: “The Impact of Critical Literacy on the Moral Reasoning of Adolescents.” Program Contributions: presentations at NCTE, MCTE, NAEA, National Gallery of Art Summer Institute for Educators.

How has NCTE provided a professional home for you?

NCTE allows me to receive the support and collaboration that teachers in larger districts experience and more. Instead of feeling isolated in a small school’s English department of one or two teachers, I am able to meet with others around the country who make me feel seen and heard. These meetings have been critical to my mental health and continuous growth as an educator, ally, and advocate.

How does your current work in your career, community, and/or classroom contribute to NCTE’s mission and vision, and demonstrate alignment with NCTE’s commitment to equity and justice? How have your personal strengths and experiences contributed to making positive change(s) in the profession?

I learned about the Seven Generations when teaching for the Red Lake Nation, and that philosophy now drives all of my career decisions. Diverse texts and critical literacy methods lead to conversations in my classroom that push students to listen, reflect, and grow as a community. I have also helped develop and facilitate MCTE’s Diverse Books Reading Group discussions. They have led to participants starting groups to discuss the books in their own districts.

What is your rationale for seeking this office? What would you like to accomplish while in office?

My students and I have benefited from NCTE, and I want to give back to the organization. Members of the Nominating Committee can create a ripple effect. Not only do they choose candidates for the Steering Committee, but they also choose candidates for the Nominating Committee. I will advocate for candidates who take initiative and value reflection, long-term thinking, and causing “good trouble.” My decisions will be influenced by the Seventh Generation.