I had the pleasure of attending NCTE in November 2018. I can never say enough about how wonderful an experience it is and I’m lucky/blessed that I can attend. As I’m posting in April, it’s been a good six months since the trip. The two biggest takeaways for me concerned ProjectLIT Community and a presentation on The Hate U Give.
@ProjectLITcomm is awesome, to put it simply. In short, the goal is to read books by diverse authors or with diverse characters. I find some of the Canterbury Tales absolutely hilarious, but I don’t exactly connect with them. And I love reading. My students, and many others, don’t necessarily share that love and I think one of the reasons may be they haven’t found a text that connects with them. The books that are read by the ProjectLIT Community facilitate that connection. I can’t say enough about how my students have responded to reading those books.
Students approach me before 8am to talk about books! They read on the bus because they don’t have time to read at home. They see parallels between books, map out such parallels, then write a composition about it on their own time, for their own knowledge, entirely unrelated to class. When they realize their friends haven’t read a book, they encourage it to have more people to discuss the book with. They ask if they can come during lunch to discuss what they’ve read because there isn’t enough time in class. Absolutely remarkable. And as such, we set up a chapter: @ProjectLITAASD
Our first official book was Dear Martin, by Nic Stone. Conversations stemming from that book have lead us to read All American Boys, The Hate U Give, Track Series, Amal Unbound, Amina’s Voice, and others I’m surely forgetting. We happen to be reading On the Come Up now and I think Aristotle and Dante will start us off next year, assuming it’s on the list.
With the popularity of these books and the impact they have on students and adults, it’s not a surprise that much ink will be given over to discussing it and much time for presentations. At NCTE, this was no different, with more than one presentation addressing THUG.
@ProjectLITcomm is awesome, to put it simply. In short, the goal is to read books by diverse authors or with diverse characters. I find some of the Canterbury Tales absolutely hilarious, but I don’t exactly connect with them. And I love reading. My students, and many others, don’t necessarily share that love and I think one of the reasons may be they haven’t found a text that connects with them. The books that are read by the ProjectLIT Community facilitate that connection. I can’t say enough about how my students have responded to reading those books.
Students approach me before 8am to talk about books! They read on the bus because they don’t have time to read at home. They see parallels between books, map out such parallels, then write a composition about it on their own time, for their own knowledge, entirely unrelated to class. When they realize their friends haven’t read a book, they encourage it to have more people to discuss the book with. They ask if they can come during lunch to discuss what they’ve read because there isn’t enough time in class. Absolutely remarkable. And as such, we set up a chapter: @ProjectLITAASD
Our first official book was Dear Martin, by Nic Stone. Conversations stemming from that book have lead us to read All American Boys, The Hate U Give, Track Series, Amal Unbound, Amina’s Voice, and others I’m surely forgetting. We happen to be reading On the Come Up now and I think Aristotle and Dante will start us off next year, assuming it’s on the list.
With the popularity of these books and the impact they have on students and adults, it’s not a surprise that much ink will be given over to discussing it and much time for presentations. At NCTE, this was no different, with more than one presentation addressing THUG.
One in particular focused on the emotional work of black women and cited Starr Carter, Beyonce, Erica Garner, among others, as examples. The presenters, both women, were not persons of color, nor do they need to be. But, they should be aware of their positionality and privilege in presenting about the emotional labor of black women at a conference, where a majority of the audience is not POC. Moreover, according to one of the presenters, the decision to present came before the other had even finished reading the book.
During a weekend visit, when she saw her niece reading the book, she declared, “OMG! Hurry up and finish, we need to write a proposal for NCTE about this! It’s due next week, we can present something!”
While I commend her for being able to put together an acceptable proposal with such little lead time, I’m troubled so little forethought went into the planning of it. And then the quality of it… it wasn’t very good. And given the explanatory comma for Beyonce’s Lemonade, it wasn’t intended for an audience of color. So white women presenting to other white women about black women, poorly. Not a good look for anyone involved. But, it was a strong reminder to always be aware of my own privilege and positionality.
I make my living teaching students that are Deaf. I use the language of the Deaf Community pretty much on the daily. My research interests will focus on Deaf students or working with Deaf students, all while I’m very much hearing.
Those were my takeaways from NCTE in Houston. I’m looking forward to Baltimore!
During a weekend visit, when she saw her niece reading the book, she declared, “OMG! Hurry up and finish, we need to write a proposal for NCTE about this! It’s due next week, we can present something!”
While I commend her for being able to put together an acceptable proposal with such little lead time, I’m troubled so little forethought went into the planning of it. And then the quality of it… it wasn’t very good. And given the explanatory comma for Beyonce’s Lemonade, it wasn’t intended for an audience of color. So white women presenting to other white women about black women, poorly. Not a good look for anyone involved. But, it was a strong reminder to always be aware of my own privilege and positionality.
I make my living teaching students that are Deaf. I use the language of the Deaf Community pretty much on the daily. My research interests will focus on Deaf students or working with Deaf students, all while I’m very much hearing.
Those were my takeaways from NCTE in Houston. I’m looking forward to Baltimore!
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