#NCTE2017: Call for Roundtable
After a very inspiring roundtable at #NCTE2016, many of us are energized to propose a related by more hands-on roundtable for #NCTE2017.
Below is a draft proposal for NCTE 2017. Please email me ASAP (paul.thomas@furman.edu) if you are interested in offering a roundtable that is a workshop related to educators developing their public voices in a wide variety of media and purposes. The current roundtables below reflect the focus of the session, but different media and perspectives are strongly encouraged to join.
2017 NCTE Annual Convention
Teaching Our Students Today, Tomorrow, Forever: Recapturing Our Voices, Our Agency, Our Mission
St. Louis, MO
November 16-19, 2017
November 16-19, 2017
Proposal: Roundtable
Co-Chairs: Chris Goering, University of Arkansas, and P. L. Thomas, Furman University
From Advocacy to Agency: Workshopping Our Public Voices
This roundtable session will offer participants concrete and hands-on opportunities to investigate the “how to” of writing and speaking in a public voice that reflects our professional agency. Tables will address writing Op-Eds and letters to the editor, starting and maintaining a professional blog, participating in social media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc.) as a professional educator, and creating and producing podcasts/radio programming. Additionally, participants will be given guidelines for blending scholarly and public work as well as how to integrate our professional advocacy-as-agency with our demanding work as classroom practitioners.
Tables:
Exploring the Op-Ed: Two Public Essayists Share Their Process for Writing in the Op-Ed Genre
Christina Berchini and Peter Smagorinsky
This table will discuss their process for identifying topics, locating a suitable publication outlet, and understanding and writing within the op-ed/blog genre. Participants will also be alerted to the risks and rewards of writing in the public forum.
Adventures in Edublogging: Finding and Developing a Public Voice
P.L. Thomas and Angela Dye
Blogging remains a misunderstood form of communication along with many types of social media. This table will discuss and workshop how to create a professional blog and social media presence while helping participants with the “how” and “why” of creating that professional voice for the public.
Guinness Stew in the Ozarks: The How and Why of Professional Writing Retreats for Teachers
Christian Z. Goering and Nikki Holland
This roundtable offers a rationale and practical advice for gathering teachers in a retreat setting to write for professional audiences. One way that teachers can develop agency in the larger conversations swirling around the punch bowl of education is by writing for professional audiences—broadly defined. The act of doing so is complicated, something that takes time, nourishment, and courage. But aren’t retreats expensive and elitist? The low cost, low maintenance model shared in this roundtable can be adapted and adopted by a wide range of teacher groups or even offered as professional development by a school district.
Blogging Advocacy in the New Latinx South
Bobbi Siefert
Blogging Advocacy in the New Latino South – In this roundtable session, presenters will discuss beginning and maintaining a TESOL Blog in the context of the New South. Discussion will center on initial steps to beginning a blog, responses to challenges, focus and direction, and sustaining momentum in an increasingly xenophobic regional and national environment. We argue that blogging is a virtual platform for our professional advocacy for Latino Transnationals K-12.
Writing Radio Commentaries for Local Stations
Rebekah Buchanan
Local NPR affiliates can be an effective way of reaching the public about education issues in our communities. Based on my experience recording monthly radio commentaries, this roundtable will present ways to start writing for the radio, coming up with topics, and presenting commentary ideas to local stations.
What Will Attract and Persuade Blog Readers?
Patricia A. Dunn
Academics are used to writing for a particular audience with discipline specific expectations about academic evidence, research, and citation—the very elements that potential blog readers may avoid. How can we attract readers to our public writing, get them to rethink an issue in our blog, and get them to share it? We’ll look at some topics, titles, and formats of several blogs that have been shared widely. We’ll talk about selecting links for providing evidence, keeping the blog lively (and short), and using effective analogies.
Who wants to be the Village Explainer? Opening Conversations, Not Closing Them
Patricia Waters, Daneell Moore, and R. Buchanan
In rural areas the English teacher is often in the invidious position of being The Village Explainer: how can the professional communicate with non-professional audiences by meeting people where they are? How do we not lose sight of urgency but also not alienate where we need allies most?#NCTE2017: Call for Roundtable | the becoming radical: