Catherine Hernandez (she/her) is an award-winning author and critically acclaimed screenwriter. She is a proud queer woman who is of Filipino, Spanish, Chinese and Indian descent and married into the Navajo Nation. Her first novel, Scarborough (Arsenal Pulp Press), won the Jim Wong-Chu Award for the unpublished manuscript; was a finalist for several awards including Canada Reads 2022. Her children’s books include M Is for Mustache: A Pride ABC Book (Flamingo Rampant) and I Promise (Arsenal Pulp Press). She wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation of Scarborough, produced by Compy Films and levelFILM, which was nominated for 11 Canadian Screen Awards and won 8 including Best Picture and Best Adapted Screenplay. Her second novel, Crosshairs, (HarperCollins Canada, Atria Books US, Jacaranda Books UK), was shortlisted for the Toronto Book Award and made the CBC's Best Canadian Fiction, NOW Magazine's 10 Best Books, Indigo Best Book, Audible Best Audiobooks and NBC 20 Best LGBTQ Books list of 2020. She is currently working on a few television projects and two novels.
Nawal Qarooni is an educator and writer who works in education spaces to support a holistic model of literacy instruction. She and her team of coaches at NQC Literacy work with teachers and school leaders to grow a love of reading and composition in ways that exalt the whole child, their cultural capital and their intrinsic curiosities. She is the proud daughter of immigrants, and mothering her four young kids shapes her understanding of teaching and learning. Nawal’s first book about family literacy with Heinemann is forthcoming in 2023.
Rebekah O'Dell is a full-time classroom teacher in Richmond, Virginia. She is the author of Writing with Mentors, Beyond Literary Analysis, and A Teacher's Guide to Mentor Texts. She is a founder of the popular Moving Writers blog and YouTube channel Mini Moves for Writers.
Misty is a seasoned facilitator and certified concept-based teaching consultant with over 20 years of teaching experience. As the founder of Pop-Up Studio and author of the best-selling Pop-Up Studio book, Misty champions a creative approach to education. She empowers teachers of all kinds to integrate concepts, inquiry and play into multimodal studio spaces at a kitchen table, around a microscope, under a tree, across a classroom desk-- anywhere really! Spanning dozens of countries and thousands of learners, Misty’s research and practice support a global movement to ‘pop-up’ curriculum with hands-on experiences that inspire meaningful, memorable, and merry learning.
Shawna Coppola has been a public school educator for over two decades. Certified as a literacy specialist as well as a K-8 educator in the state of New Hampshire, Shawna is a sought-after speaker and a consultant with The Educator Collaborative, a literacy think tank & professional development organization. She has written two books about writing for teachers and is currently working on a third about anti-oppressive literacy education.
Trevor Aleo is an English teacher, the ELA lead for Team LTT, and a co-author of Learning That Transfers: Designing Curriculum for a Changing World. His research interests include teacher professional learning, multimodal composition, and exploring the intersection between disciplinary literacy and new literacies within English Language Arts. He holds a BA in English and an MAT from James Madison University and is pursuing a doctorate in Learning Design and Leadership at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He also serves on the AERA Writing & Literacies Graduate Student Board.
Paul W. Hankins is a classroom teacher, artist, and poet with over a decade of experience in working with students seeking college credit in composition and communications. He has unique yet standard-based and rigorous approaches to the presentation of ELA concepts. His bent toward creative, multimodal expression for both himself and his students result in student products that stretch the idea of what it means to respond to writing invitations within the learning community.
This session will explore the idea of land literacy from an Indigenous Perspective.
Including: Understanding and experiencing connections with the land is fundamental to Indigenous Knowledge.
Intended Outcomes:
develop their own relationships with the land
interact with their environment and community
engage in authentic experiences
develop an understanding and appreciation of different relationships with the land
view the land from a holistic, interconnected perspective
Questions posed will include:
What is the geology of the land where I live? What are the actual soil types? What plants and animals might have existed here before humans began to make their mark? What were the historical uses of this land before settlement? How have precipitation patterns changed in recent years, and if they have what effect has it had on the land?
Target Audience: Gr 6 - 12
Robin M. Bright is a Professor at the University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, in the Faculty of Education. She teaches courses to undergraduate and graduate students in the areas of language arts, reading, writing and gender.
Currently, Dr. Bright is working with a group of gifted adolescent writers on the topics of effective writing instruction and developing imagination in the middle and high school grades.
We know books can be mirrors, windows and sliding glass doors as explained by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop. This session will include specific book titles and groups of books that would help students explore their identities and their place in the world. Curricular outcomes related to all strands of ELA will be included to show how to use this broad approach to 'story' while accomplishing many curricular outcomes along the way.
Why vocabulary? We will take part in some high-yield vocabulary and language activities. These activities can be used across each subject and multiple grade levels.
Dr. Adam Browning is a director of learning with Palliser School Division who is passionate about literacy and language learning.
The ELA classroom is often a place of remembering. This is particularly the case when it comes to personal or autobiographical writing. In this session, I explore ghosts as a construct for memory in student autobiography and memoir. I share a unit I designed wherein students examine the concept of ghosts: how they function and what they tend to signify in literary texts and autobiographical writing. I invite teachers to consider this account as just one example of how we might engage and support student-writers as they reflect upon the significance of memory and personal experience during moments of loss or grief.
Irene Heffel is a literacy consultant and educator with over 35 years of experience at all levels. She has worked with both elementary and secondary teachers to implement best practices in curriculum, assessment and Backward Design.
Lifting Literacy - Brent Gilson
Brent Gilson is a high school teacher with experience teaching at every division level in his career. He has been part of the #G2Great Twitter conversation for educators in English for several years and has recently hosted the first of a new series folding in his love of weightlifting with his passion for literacy called #LiftingLiteracy. Brent has presented sessions at the English Language Arts Council (ELAC) and National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conferences.