The George Orwell Award at 50: A Conversation on Making Americans with Jessica Lander

**The George Orwell Award at 50: A Conversation on Making Americans with Jessica Lander**

Wednesday, December 10, 2025
7:00–8:00 p.m. ET

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of NCTE’s George Orwell Award, which honors creators of work that contributes to honesty and clarity in public language, NCTE invites you to the first webinar in a special series where you can hear directly from winners of this prestigious award.

Join us to hear from Jessica Lander, nationally recognized author of Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education. The 2024 George Orwell Award–winning book explores immigrant education in the United States, drawing on history, public language and policy, political movements, and powerful student stories. Lander’s new ebook, Making Americans: Plyler v. Doe and Opening the School Door, spotlights the story of the 1982 Supreme Court case affirming every student’s right to attend public school.

Members will

gain knowledge about the history of immigrant education in the US,
learn about the experiences of immigrant students and their educators, and
discover practical strategies for teaching and advocating for immigrant students.

REGISTER HERE

This event is free for NCTE members. Not a member? Join today!

Registration for this event will close at 5:30 p.m. ET on December 10. Registrants will receive a Zoom meeting invitation after registering and reminder emails in advance of the event.

Email profdev@ncte.org with questions.

FEATURED SPEAKERS

Jessica Lander is an award-winning teacher, writer, and author. For much of the last decade, she has taught history and civics to recent immigrant students in a Massachusetts public high school and has won numerous awards for her teaching. Jessica was

the 2023 Massachusetts History Teacher of the Year, presented by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History;
one of the 2023 Top 10 National History Teachers of the Year, presented by the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History;
a 2023 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year finalist, presented by the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education; and
a top 50 finalist for the Global Teacher Prize in 2021, presented by the Varkey Foundation.

Jessica writes frequently about education policy and teaching. She is the author of Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education, which won the 2024 George Orwell Award for Honesty and Clarity in Public Language from the National Council of Teachers of English for “writers who have made outstanding contributions to the critical analysis of public discourse.” Jessica is coauthor of Powerful Partnerships: A Teacher’s Guide to Engaging Families for Student Success and the author of Driving Backwards.

Jessica is currently a Re-Imagining Migration Senior Education Policy Fellow.

Valerie Taylor is currently a PhD candidate in the language and literacy program in the Curriculum and Instruction Department at the University of Texas at Austin. She retired from Westlake High School in Austin, Texas, in June of 2021 after a 36-year career as a high school English teacher and instructional coach. As a teacher, Taylor taught English in grades 9–12, mostly eleventh graders. As an instructional coach, Taylor worked with teachers in all disciplines, focusing on collaborative learning, disciplinary literacy, and Universal Design for Learning. She is also a co-director of the Central Texas Writing Project at Texas State University, a former president of the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts, and current Chair of the NCTE Public Language Award Committee. She can be reached at vfstaylor@gmail.com.

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