On Leadership: A Virtual Literacy Leadership Symposium

Saturday, April 11 | 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET

REGISTER HERE

This event is open to all CEL members. Not yet a member? Join today!

Registration for this event will close at 8:00 p.m. ET on Friday, April 10.

We invite you to join us for our On Leadership virtual literacy leadership symposium, hosted by our CEL Executive Committee. Zoom in from your couch or your office. Sip coffee, tea, soda, or whatever else you’d like. While our learning and work is serious, our interactions are relaxed. We know you labor during the week maintaining and growing your department and professional community. Take a breath with us and learn on your terms.

When you register for the symposium, you will receive a Zoom link. You do not need to select the sessions you plan to attend in advance. If you would like to discuss the English Leadership Quarterly article or the book club selection (Step Aside: Strategies for Student-Driven Learning with Secondary Readers and Writers), we encourage you to read them in advance, but you can join the conversation regardless! You will select which Session 1 discussion and which Session 2 workshop breakout room you would like to attend that morning. Register now and finalize your agenda later.

At this event, literacy leaders will

engage with published scholarship—an article or book study—and discuss how those ideas can shape, impact, and inform leadership decisions within their individual teams or contexts;
participate in an interactive workshop to discuss pressing and persistent topics relevant to literacy leadership; and
network with peers who are addressing similar opportunities and challenges in different schools to find effective practices to empower English and literacy teams.

Please contact profdev@ncte.org with questions.

PROGRAM

Welcome and Introductions (9:00–9:20 a.m. ET)
Presenter: Nicholas Emmanuele (CEL Chair)

Session 1: Book and Article Discussions (9:25–10:20 a.m. ET)

Book Study
Facilitators: Matthew Helmers (CEL Member-at-Large and CEL 2025 Program Chair)
Book: Step Aside: Strategies for Student-Driven Learning with Secondary Readers and Writers by Sarah M. Zerwin
Join our discussion of Sarah Zerwin’s Step Aside building on her Keynote address at #CEL25. Whether you’ve had time to read the entire book or selected chapters, jump into this conversation on how students can drive their own learning through a three-step meaning-making process. Turn your leadership lens to this text that guides teachers in supporting the literacy lives of secondary students.

ELQ Article Study
Facilitator: Catline Tanis (CEL Associate Chair)
Article: “Effectively Addressing Anti-Democratic Behaviors in Our School Communities” by Jan Stallones (ELQ August 2024)
Explore the CEL 2025 Best English Leadership Quarterly article by Jan Stallones. Read the article in advance or skim it as we open our discussions. We will explore Stallones’s three stages of fostering critical thinking and empathy with students to address anti-democratic behaviors.

What Are You Reading?
Facilitators: Katie Cubano and Kristen Schaefer (CEL Members-at-Large)
Join this discussion to share and receive book recommendations of all kinds, whether you’re looking for new professional titles to invigorate your leadership, new YA or children’s books for the classroom, or contemporary nonfiction or fiction titles to add to your own TBR list. Participants will be asked to share current professional and personal favorites as we compile more books to be added to our stack!

Session 2: Interactive Workshop Sessions (10:30–11:25 a.m. ET)

Teaching Morphology to Secondary Students: Word Maps, Matrices, and More
Facilitator: Jason Stephenson (CEL 2026 Program Chair)
Striving adolescent readers benefit from explicit, strategic literacy instruction. This session explores how secondary English teachers can leverage morphology—affixes and Greek and Latin roots—to strengthen vocabulary, comprehension, and confidence across content areas. Designed with instructional leaders in mind, this session highlights practical approaches you can support and model in your schools. Join us to explore why morphology isn’t remedial—it’s essential for every learner.

Navigating the Disciplinary Literacy Journey: Tools for Pathfinders and Learners (Grades 6–12)
Facilitator: Liz Lietz (Past CEL Member-at-Large)
Are you a leader charged with planning literacy professional learning in middle or high school buildings? Michigan educators have created robust tools through a disciplinary literacy frame, and we want to share them with you! Explore these FREE and publicly available systems-wide and classroom-level practices. All of the materials shared are backed by research and developed in partnership with classroom teachers, university researchers, and content consultants. Participants will consider how they might leverage these resources to support leading literacy improvements in their own setting—in ELA classes and beyond.

Defining, Bridging, and Implementing Literacy and English in Schools
Facilitator: Kristine Marver Lize (CEL Member-at-Large)
Early literacy, decoding, literary elements, literature, and broader concepts of English studies permeate our experiences in developing curricula and learning experiences. Do literacy skills end before English concepts begin? How do they overlap and complement one another? To what extent do we encourage our teachers and students to embrace literacy and English? What does professional learning look like within and across grade levels? Join this collaborative discussion to think more deeply about concepts of literacy and English in your context and beyond.

General Membership Meeting (11:30 a.m.–12:00 p.m. ET)
Presenter: Nicholas Emmanuele (CEL Chair)
Our virtual General Membership Meeting will include information about how our organization functions and current projects. This is a space for members to share how CEL can better serve its membership while brainstorming future events and resources.