Maggie Raymond leads one of five high school cohorts comprising educators from different teaching settings across the country who are convening as a group to determine what specific resources to create.
Meet the Cohort
Maggie Raymond teaches English IV AP/ADV dual credit classes at Bishop Lynch High School. A member of the Margaret Atwood Society, she has participated in various panels discussing Atwood’s writing and legacy, and in 2025, she celebrated the publication of her chapter, “Rethinking Archetypes in the High School Classroom with The Penelopiad,” in the MLA’s Approaches to Teaching the Works of Margaret Atwood. A member of NCTE since 2012, she led a round-table discussion on developing student inquiry through reading and writing at the 2019 NCTE Annual Convention and delivered a poster presentation on Universal Design for Learning at the 2024 NCTE Annual Convention. Her previous cohort experiences include NCTE’s This Story Matters High School Cohort to create rationales for teachers supporting banned or challenged books, and NCTE’s partnership with the Library of Congress to create rationales for including primary sources in the classroom.
John Golden teaches at Cleveland High School in Portland, Oregon. An English teacher for over thirty years, he has developed curriculum and led workshops for the College Board’s Pacesetter® and SpringBoard® English programs. He is a coauthor of the Bedford, Freeman and Worth textbooks Foundations of Language Literature and Advanced Language and Literature. He is also the author of NCTE’s Reading in the Dark: Using Film as a Tool in the English Classroom and Reading in the Reel World: Teaching Documentaries and Other Nonfiction Texts, the producer and cohost of the podcast Third Rail Classroom, and the writer and producer of the NCTE Centennial Film, Reading the Past, Writing the Future.
Mother, wife, teacher, poet. April Pameticky is a public school educator at the largest high school in Kansas and is a peer facilitator within the creative community of artists and writers in Wichita. She launched the Wichita Broadside Project and has served as editor of Voices of Kansas, an a youth online poetry journal, sponsored by the Kansas Association for Teachers of English. Pameticky has served as a board member of KATE since 2013, currently serving as Vice President. Her collaboration with photographer Amanda Pfister, She Cast Her Gaze, has been at Steckline Gallery, the Ulrich Museum of Art, and the Johnson-Humrickshouse Museum in Ohio. She is a doctoral student at Kansas State University, studying teacher efficacy and AI technology as it affects writing pedagogy and methods. Her latest poetry collection, with concern for how words land in the body, will be released in 2026 from Spartan Press.
Heather Richards teaches English and AP Psychology at James Madison High School in San Diego, where she also coaches cross country and directs the after-school theater program. Next year, she’ll launch a new theater course, which she’s excited to build from the ground up. Her background includes an MBA and an MEd, and she brings both lenses into how she designs learning. Her classroom centers on student voice, risk-taking, and feedback-driven growth. She builds project-based units around contemporary mentor texts, storytelling, and identity, and works with a diverse population of learners. Heather joined the NCTE AI cohort because she’s interested in how AI can support student thinking without replacing it. She wants to help students use these tools with curiosity and integrity, and learn alongside other educators figuring out what thoughtful AI integration looks like in a classroom. Outside of school she enjoys reading, CrossFit, running, yoga, and triathlons.
Sharisse Slade is in her fourth year of teaching high school English. She primarily teaches tenth grade, with a few electives thrown in, serving sophomores through seniors. She loves the study of literature and is passionate about getting books into kids’ hands. Her favorite thing to discuss is how to get kids reading more. She teaches in a rural town right on the North Dakota/Montana border. She is fascinated with this new generation of technology and has set out to learn all she can about AI and the best use for her students. She is a mom to six fabulous kids and is a brand-new grandma! Her family is everything to her. She enjoys a good puzzle, a good book, and a crisp Pepsi. She loves to travel. She is excited to be a part of this important dialogue.