NCTE has four Section Steering Committees: Elementary, Middle Level, Secondary, and College. These sections are integral to our membership, informing, encouraging, creating, and sustaining the mission of NCTE.
The role of the Sections is to reflect the thoughts, hopes, ideas, frustrations, and goals of ELA teachers, while at the same time providing a constant stream of pedagogical resources and dialectical conversations. And the Sections also plan exciting events for the NCTE Convention—just take a look at what’s on offer for #NCTE20!
Gloria Boutte
Elementary Section Get-Together
Thursday, November 18 | 7:30–8:30 p.m. ET
Gloria Boutte is a Carolina Distinguished Professor at the University of South Carolina. Her scholarship and teaching focus on equity pedagogies. Gloria has authored/edited African Diaspora Literacy: The Heart of Transformation in K–12 Schools and Teacher Education (2019 AESA Critics Choice Award), Educating African American Students: And How Are the Children?; Resounding Voices: School Experiences of People from Diverse Ethnic Backgrounds; and Multicultural Education: Raising Consciousness. She’s the recipient of prestigious Fulbright Scholar and Fulbright Specialist awards and the founder of the Center for the Education and Equity of African American Students.
Kimberly N. Parker
Elementary Section Get-Together
Thursday, November 18 | 7:30–8:30 p.m. ET
Kimberly N. Parker currently prepares preservice teachers as the assistant director of the Teacher Training Center at Shady Hill School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Kim taught in public schools, universities, and graduate schools for 18 years, and served on several committees for the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) and the New England Association of Teachers of English (NEATE). She is a cofounder of #DisruptTexts and can be found on Twitter at @TchKimpossible.
Jerry Craft
Secondary Section Get-Together
Thursday, November 18 | 7:30–8:30 p.m. ET
Jerry Craft is the New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of the graphic novels New Kid and Class Act. New Kid is the winner of both the 2020 John Newbery Medal for the most outstanding contribution to children’s literature and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers’ Literature. He was also awarded the Coretta Scott King Author Award for the most outstanding work by an African American writer. He was born in Harlem, grew up in New York City, and currently lives in Connecticut with his two sons and two beagles.
Tiffany D. Jackson
Secondary Section Get-Together
Thursday, November 18 | 7:30–8:30 p.m. ET
Tiffany D. Jackson is the critically acclaimed author of young adult novels, including the Coretta Scott King–John Steptoe New Talent Award-winning Monday’s Not Coming, the NAACP Image Award-nominated Allegedly, Let Me Hear a Rhyme, and her 2020 title Grown. She received her bachelor of arts in film from Howard University and her master of arts in media studies from the New School. She has over a decade in TV/film experience. The Brooklyn native is a lover of naps, cookie dough, and beaches, currently residing in the borough she loves, most likely multitasking.
Reneé Watson
Secondary Section Get-Together
Thursday, November 18 | 7:30–8:30 p.m. ET
Renée Watson is a New York Times bestselling author. Her young adult novel, Piecing Me Together (Bloomsbury, 2017) received a Coretta Scott King Award and Newbery Honor. Her children’s picture books and novels for teens have received several awards and international recognition. She has given readings and lectures at many renowned places including the United Nations, the Library of Congress, and the US Embassy in Japan. Her articles on teaching and arts education have been published in Rethinking Schools and Oregon English Journal. Renée grew up in Portland, Oregon, and currently lives in New York City.
justin a. reynolds
Secondary Section Get-Together
Thursday, November 18 | 7:30–8:30 p.m. ET
justin a. reynolds has always wanted to be a writer. The earliest documentation of this desire was recorded on a sheet of green kindergarten paper, which can be found prominently displayed in his mom’s office. Opposite of Always, his debut novel, was an Indies Introduce Top Ten Debut and a School Library Journal Best Book of 2019, has been translated into 17 languages, and is being developed for film with Paramount Players. Prior to his writing career, justin worked as a registered nurse in hematology, oncology, and orthopedics. He resides in northeast Ohio with his family, and enjoys sports and dancing terribly.
Julia E. Torres
Secondary Section Get-Together
Thursday, November 18 | 7:30–8:30 p.m. ET
Julia E. Torres is a veteran language arts teacher and librarian in Denver, Colorado. Julia facilitates teacher development workshops rooted in the areas of antiracist education, equity and access in literacy and librarianship, and education as a practice of liberation. She serves on several local and national boards and committees promoting educational equity and progressivism and is the current NCTE Secondary Representative-at-Large, an Educolor Collective steering committee member, a Book Love Foundation board member, and an Educator Collaborative Book Ambassador.
Eric Velasquez
Secondary Section Get-Together
Thursday, November 18 | 7:30–8:30 p.m. ET
Award-winning illustrator Eric Velasquez was born and grew up in Spanish Harlem. He earned his BFA from the School of Visual Arts and has been illustrating for over 30 years. His newest illustrated books are Ruth Objects: The life of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Doreen Rappaport, Strong Voices Fifteen American Speeches Worth Knowing, with introductions by Tonya Bolden, and She Was The First: The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm by Katheryn Russell-Brown. Eric Velasquez lives and works in New York and teaches book illustration at the Fashion Institute of Technology in NYC.
Tobi Jacobi
College Section Community Writing Workshop Presentation
Saturday, November 20 | 12:30-1:45 p.m. ET
Tobi Jacobi is a professor of English and director of the University Composition Program and the Community Literacy Center at Colorado State University. She coordinates the SpeakOut! Writing Workshop Program for community writers working from spaces of confinement and recovery. Her scholarship on prison literacy and community writing appears in journals such as Reflections, Community Literacy Journal, The Journal of Correctional Education, Feminist Formations, and Radical Teacher and in edited collections, and her coedited book Women, Writing, and Prison came out in 2014.
John Tiedemann
College Section Community Writing Workshop Presentation
Saturday, November 20 | 12:30-1:45 p.m. ET
John Tiedemann is an associate professor at the University of Denver, where he teaches in the University Writing Program. For eight years, he served as faculty director of the Social Justice Living and Learning Community. In 2007, he cofounded the DU Community Writing Center, with locations in the Saint Francis Center and The Gathering Place, two daytime shelters for the homeless.
Veronica House
College Section Community Writing Workshop Presentation
Saturday, November 20 | 12:30-1:45 p.m. ET
Veronica House founded the Conference on Community Writing in 2015 and launched the Coalition for Community Writing in 2018. She is faculty in the Program for Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Colorado Boulder and founded CU’s Writing Initiative for Service and Engagement program—the first community-engaged Writing and Rhetoric courses for first-year students—which was awarded the Campus Compact of the Mountain West’s Engaged Program Award. Veronica is the author of Medea’s Chorus: Myth and Women’s Poetry Since 1950 (2014) and coeditor of the Community Literacy Journal.
Don’t miss this year’s great lineup! Register now!
It is the policy of NCTE in all publications, including the Literacy & NCTE blog, to provide a forum for the open discussion of ideas concerning the content and the teaching of English and the language arts. Publicity accorded to any particular point of view does not imply endorsement by the Executive Committee, the Board of Directors, the staff, or the membership at large, except in announcements of policy, where such endorsement is clearly specified.