ECEA Conference Scholarships for Teachers - Oct 15th Submission Deadline

ARE YOU AN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATOR COMMITTED TO THOUGHTFUL, STUDENT-CENTERED, CULTURALLY-RESPONSIVE LITERACY TEACHING?  OR DO YOU KNOW SOMEONE WHO IS?  Apply for a scholarship to this year’s NCTE conference in Las Vegas, NV!

Application Deadline: October 15, 2012

NCTE’s Early Childhood Education Assembly (ECEA) is awarding two $150 scholarships to the 2012 NCTE Conference to teachers of children in preschool and early elementary grades. The conference scholarship award will support teachers who:

·      Include children’s languages, cultures, and backgrounds in the curriculum

·      Embed the teaching of literacy skills within authentic opportunities for reading and writing

·      Create spaces for children to inquire into their interests and the world around them

The winners of the scholarship will receive a monetary award ($150) to support conference attendance and the opportunity to write an entry regarding their experiences at the NCTE Day of Early Childhood for the ECEA blog.

Applications will be reviewed by the ECEA Professional Development Committee. Applications should include the following:

·      A letter (1-2 pages) addressed to the ECEA Professional Development Committee describing the nominee’s commitment to early literacy teaching and learning.  Applicants may also include photographs or examples of student work that illustrate their early literacy pedagogies.

·      Nominee’s contact information, including grade level taught.

·      Nominees must be members of the Early Childhood Education Assembly

Both third-party nominations and self-nominations will be considered.

Applications are due by October 15, 2012 and can be submitted via email to María Paula Ghiso, ECEA Professional Development Committee Chair (ghiso@tc.edu)

The previous three posts included 1) the Opening & Closing sessions and the Business Meeting on Saturday, the Day of Early Childhood, at the upcoming conference as well as 2) the other sessions on that day plus 3) the Friday sessions that are also EC. Following are additional EC sessions on Saturday and Sunday. As before, this is a draft - let me know if changes are needed. And please publicize!

Additional EC Strand Sessions

Saturday, November 17

I.16 PRIME TIME FAMILY READING TIME: ENGAGING FAMILIES IN AUTHENTIC READING EXPERIENCES

Description: Highlighting families with six to ten-year old children, Prime Time Family Reading Time is an innovative family literacy program aimed at halting and reversing intergenerational illiteracy. Conducted in afterschool settings: public libraries, schools, and community centers, Prime Time reinforces the role of the family and centers around humanities-themed literature.

Participants: 

Margaret-Mary Sulentic Dowell, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge 

Holly Bell, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, New Orleans 

Bobbie Stevenson, Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities 

J.12 Title: CHILDREN'S LITERATURE: iDREAM, iCONNECT, AND iIGNITE WITH iPADS AND E-LITERATURE

Description: Investigate how eBooks and literature apps for iPads can partner with traditional children’s literature to add another dimension to literacy learning. This session will examine the theory behind expanding children’s traditional literature with electronic books (e-books) and literature apps and evaluative criteria for ensuring high quality e-Literature for children.  

Participants:

Peggy Auman, Valdosta State University

Janet Foster, Valdosta State University

Deb Marciano, Valdosta State University

Location: Studio Room 6, Grand Arena, Main Floor by Grand Garden Arena, MGM Grand Time: Saturday 11/17 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM

Additional EC Strand Sessions

Sunday, November 18

L.03 Title: “NAPPY HAIR”: REVISITING A CLASSIC

Description: Presenters will perform Herron's book, “Nappy Hair”, which was the center of multicultural/African American controversy since 1998. An interactive classroom session follows with sharing of K-12 learning modules derived from “Nappy Hair”. Presentation will also connect African American call and response to oral literature of ancient epic literature.

Participants:

Carolivia Herron, Arizona State University

Neal Lester, Arizona State University

Location: Grand Ballroom Room 121, Level One, MGM Grand Time: Sunday 11/18 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM

L.14 Title: IGNITING A PASSION FOR LITERACY AND MATH THROUGH STORYTELLING

Description: Two kindergarten teachers and a reading teacher share how storytelling plays a critical role in their work with children in diverse Title I schools. The presenters will share their work with storytelling in literacy and math to deepen understanding and develop ownership of learning in today’s changing world.

Participants:

Pat Johnson, Fairfax County Public Schools 

Katie Keier, Fairfax County Public Schools

Kassia Omohundro Wedekind, Fairfax County Public Schools 

Location: Studio Room 3 , Grand Arena, Main Floor by Grand Garden Arena, MGM Grand Time: Sunday 11/18 8:30 AM - 9:45 AM

The previous two posts included the Opening & Closing sessions and the Business Meeting on Saturday, the Day of Early Childhood, at the upcoming conference as well as the other sessions on that day. Here are the Early Childhood sessions scheduled for Friday. Note that the Literacy Playshop session is on Friday, not on Saturday as listed elsewhere!  As before, this is a draft - let me know if changes are needed.

C.18 Title: WRITING THE IMAGINATION: TEACHING K-3 STUDENTS TO CRAFT MEANINGFUL REALISTIC FICTION

Description: The panel will show participants how to teach K-3 students to write focused, meaningful, realistic fiction. Participants will leave with a comprehensive overview of the unit, including: a sequence of whole class mini-lessons, tools for assessment, predictable teaching for differentiated instruction, and ways to use suggested mentor texts.

Participants: 

Jenny Bender, Northampton Public Schools, Massachusetts

Mary Bates, Jackson Street Public School, Northampton, Massachusetts

Nancy Harlow, Leeds Public Schools, Massachusetts

Mary Ellen Reed, Jackson Street Public School, Northampton, Massachusetts

Location: Room 304, Level Three, MGM Grand Time: Friday 11/16 12:30 PM - 1:45 PM

D.18 Title: DIFFERENT WAYS TO USE READ ALOUD ACROSS THE DAY

Description: Read Alouds are not just for reading aloud. They are an opportunity for learners to experience the power and uses of text. In this workshop, participants will explore the educational uses of fiction and informational texts, including: comprehension skills, author’s craft, and content area knowledge.

Participants:

Alexis Czeterko, Teachers College Reading and Writing Project

Sadia Halim, Teachers College Reading and Writing Project

Brianna Parlistis, Teachers College Reading and Writing Project

Katie Wears, Teachers College Reading and Writing Project

Location: Room 105, Level One, MGM Grand Time: Friday 11/16 2:30 PM - 3:45 PM

E.38 Title: LITERACY PLAYSHOP: EXPANDING EARLY CHILDHOOD LITERACY CURRICULUM THROUGH PLAY-BASED FILMMAKING AND POPULAR MEDIA

Description: In this presentation, we introduce Literacy Playshop: a curricular framework that helps early childhood teachers develop play-based media production and explore its potential for helping young children—3- to 8-year-olds—respond critically and productively to a world filled with popular animated films, television, video games, and other popular media.

Participants:

Karen Wohlwend, Indiana University

Location: Room 303, Level Three, MGM Grand Time: Friday 11/16 4:00 PM - 5:15 PM

Here are additional sessions on the Day of Early Childhood. (See the previous post for the opening and closing sessions and the business meeting.) This is a draft - let me know if changes are needed. And publicize, publicize, publicize!

G.17 Title: DOES IT REALLY MATTER HOW KIDS THINK? IDEAS AND INSIGHTS INTO HELPING STUDENTS GROW AS READERS

Description: This interactive session will focus on how young children think about reading and about themselves as readers and the relationship that it has on their reading progress. We will use video clips and artifacts to discuss ways to help children develop 'generative theories.' Participants: 

Diane Stephens, University of South Carolina, Columbia

Kelly Still, Lexington Richland School District

Tara Thompson, Lexington Richland School District

Location: Room 302, Level Three, MGM Grand Time: Saturday 11/17 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

G.20 Title: WRITER'S WORKSHOP IN PRE-KINDERGARTEN: CULTIVATING TEACHER LEADERSHIP AND LITERACY ACHIEVEMENT IN A STATE AND FEDERALLY SUBSIDIZED PRE-SCHOOL PROGRAM

Description: This panel presentation will provide a glimpse of a multi-year project in which teachers in a federally state subsided prekindergarten program and a university instructor explore writers workshop in three diverse classrooms.

Participants:

Erin Miller, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC

Heather Silver, Horrell Hill Elementary

Hannah Stair, Horrell Hill Elementary

Lori Tilley, Horrell Hill Elementary

Location: Room 307, Level Three, MGM Grand  Time: Saturday 11/17  9:30-AM – 10:45AM

G.21 Title: UNDERSTANDING OURSELVES AND OTHERS: HOW GLOBAL PICTUREBOOKS HELP CHILDREN DREAM, CONNECT, IGNITE!

Description: In this session the presenters share how they used art and writing experiences with global children’s literature to help pre-kindergarten, kindergarten, and first grade children understand themselves as cultural beings and how then studying another culture further enhanced and enriched the children’s intercultural understandings of themselves and others.

Participants:

Prisca Martens, Towson University

Stacy Aghalarov, Pot Spring Elementary School

Margot Clarke-Williams, Pot Spring Elementary School

Michelle Doyle, Pot Spring School

Laura Fuhrman, Pot Spring School

Christie Furnari,  Pot Spring School

Jenna Loomis, Pot Spring School

Liz Soper, Pto Spring School

Darlene Wolinski, Pot Spring School

Ray Martens, Towson University

Location: Room 304, Level Three, MGM Grand Time: Saturday 11/17 9:30 AM - 10:45 AM

H.08 Title: TEXTS DON'T WRITE THEMSELVES-AUTHORS (AND ILLUSTRATORS!) DO: REFRAMING THE IDEA OF MENTOR TEXTS IN THE WRITING WORKSHOP

Description: While the term mentor texts is popular, in fact, it’s the authors and illustrators who are mentors, not the texts themselves. Two teachers of writing join a beloved mentor, award-winning writer and illustrator Marla Frazee, to show how powerful mentorship can be in a writing workshop for beginning writers.

Participants:

Lisa Cleaveland, Jonathan Valley Elementary School

Marla Frazee, Beach Lane Books

Katie Wood Ray, Independent Author and Consultant

Allyn Johnson, Beach Lane Books - Respondent

Location: Premier Ballroom Room 313, Level Three, MGM Grand Time: Saturday 11/17 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM

I.15 CONSTRUCTING CRITICAL KNOWLEDGE AND RESPONSE IN THE CULTURALLY AND LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE ELEMENTARY CLASSROOMS WITH CRITICAL AND GLOBAL TEXTS

Level: Elementary Topic of Interest: Literature

Description: The purpose of this conversation is to ignite conversations and response around critical and global texts in classrooms. The presenters will facilitate discussion of international texts, critical conversations, and tools needed to create analytical learning. Examples will be examined in groups. These groups will come back together and synthesize understandings.

Participants:

Jeanne Fain, Middle Tennessee State University

Bobbie Solley, Middle Tennessee State University

Location: Room 304, Level Three, MGM Grand Time: Saturday 11/17 1:15 PM - 2:30 PM

J.17 Title: CARING PRACTICES IN EARLY LITERACY CLASSROOMS: CHALLENGING TRADITIONAL NOTIONS

Level: Elementary  Topic of Interest: Other

Description: Caring relationships are foundational to literacy teaching/learning. However, when families ways of using and supporting literacies and learning are not valued in classrooms, caring environments cannot be achieved. This panel shares stories from diverse settings to suggest a new definition of caring from a critical and culturally relevant perspective.

Participants:

Gloria Boutte, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC

George Johnson, South Carolina State University

Kindel Turner Nash, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC

Dinah Volk, Cleveland State University, Cleveland, OH

Susi Long, Chair

Location: Room 307, Level Three, MGM Grand Time: Saturday 11/17 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM

J.25 Title: RECONNECTING, REIGNITING, AND REALIZING THE DREAMS WE DREAMED

Level: Teacher Education, Elementary Topic of Interest: 21st-Century Literacy Description: Presenters will discuss how collaboratively writing a literacy standards document for The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards reignited their passions as educators and impacted their classroom practice and research in early childhood language and literacy development with particular focus on English language learners and visual and digital literacy. Participants: 

Donna Mahar, State University of New York, Empire State College, Saratoga Springs -           

Stella Nowell, University of Wyoming Lab School, Laramie

Becky McGraw, Cherokee County School District

Jonathan Gillentine, Rev. Benjamin Parker School

Jennifer Strachan, Montgomery County Public Schools

Location: Room 109, Level One, MGM Grand Time: Saturday 11/17 2:45 PM - 4:00 PM

Here's a preview of the Opening and Closing sessions of the Day of Early Childhood, plus the Business Meeting. Saturday, November 17 at the NCTE conference. Note that we're working to have the Closing session and the Meeting in the same room! You will be receiving emails with the whole updated schedule in the future. For now, I'll be sharing info on sessions in this blog a bit at a time so stay tuned.

This is a draft, pieced together from different sources, so please email me at d.volk@csuohio.edu if changes need to be made. 

Most important, please help us publicize all these sessions. Tell (and bring) your friends, colleagues, teachers, parents, new acquaintances....

 

F.15 OPENING SESSION DAY OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

Title: MAKING THE UNCONVENTIONAL CONVENTIONAL: LITERACY, IDENTITY, AND SOCIAL ACTION

Description: The presenters will share strategies that lift literacy learning by honoring and expanding students' cultural/linguistic interests and identities and bringing family, community, and heritage practices into learning to promote academic achievement authentically. The presentation will feature powerful strategies that help children take action to make the world a better place. The words and work of children will be highlighted as teachers describe how they successfully bring unconventional teaching methods to life within a standards-driven world.

Participants:

Susi Long, University of S. Carolina, Columbia, SC

Janice Baines, Carver Lyon Elementary, Columbia, SC

Carmen Tisdale, Carver Lyon Elementary, Columbia, SC

Heidi Mills, Center for Inquiry, Columbia, SC

Chris Haas, Center for Inquiry, Columbia, SC

Jennifer Barnes, Center for Inquiry, Columbia, SC

Tim O’Keefe, Center for Inquiry, Columbia, SC

Michelle Kimpson, Center for Inquiry, Columbia, SC

Location: Room 304, Level Three, MGM Grand Time: Saturday 11/17 8:00 AM - 9:15 AM 

K.18 CLOSING SESSION FOR THE DAY OF EARLY CHILDHOOD

Title: YOUNG CHILDREN'S LITERACY PRACTICES IN VIRTUAL WORLDS

Description: Children are becoming increasingly involved in the use of online games and virtual spaces. In this session, presenters examine young children’s literacy practices as they engage in virtual worlds, such as Webkinz and Club Penguin, and play with related toys and artifacts. Implications for early childhood classrooms will be examined.

Participants: 

Rebecca Black, University of California, Irvine 

Anne Burke, Memorial University 

Julia Gillen, Lancaster University, UK     

Guy Merchant, Sheffield Hallam University, UK

Tolga Kargin, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

Karen Wohlwend, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN

Vivian Vasquez, American University, Wash, DC – Discussant

Location: Room 307, Level Three, MGM Grand Time: Saturday 11/17 4:15 PM - 5:30 PM

SIG.13 Title: EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION ASSEMBLY BUSINESS MEETING

Description: This is the Business Meeting of the Early Childhood Education Assembly. The Early Childhood Assembly provides a home at NCTE for all who work with young children. We look forward to engaging in dialogue as we seek to support teachers of young children with a strong emphasis on promoting thoughtful practices that enhance the teaching and learning of young children within and across diverse communities. Please join us!

Participants: 

Chair: Mariana Souto-Manning, Teachers College, Columbia University

Assistant Chair: Dinah Volk, Cleveland State University

Treasurer: Laurie Katz, Ohio State University

Secretary: Carol Felderman: American University

Location: Room 203, Level Two, MGM Grand Time: Saturday 11/17 5:45PM-7:00PM

ECEA's first NCTE conference yearbook published!

ECEA's first NCTE conference yearbook published!  

Perspectives and Provocations in Early Childhood Education 
Edited by Vivian Vasquez and Jeffrey Wood
CONTENTS
Early Childhood Education Assembly Book Series. Acknowledgments. Introducing Perspectives and Provocations, Vivian Vasquez and Jeffrey Wood. Locating Themes and Trends of Early Childhood Education in Language Arts, Laurie Katz, Caitlin L. Ryan, Melissa I. Wilson, and Detra Price-Dennis. Negotiating Critical Literacies: Toward Full Inclusion in Early Childhood Classrooms, Mariana Souto-Manning and Carol Branigan Felderman. Recursos y Practicas Culturales: Reframing Writing as a Social Practice with Puerto Rican Children, Carmen L. Medina, María del Rocío Costa, and Nayda Soto. “How-To” Exercise Playful Power: Young Children Write Their Worlds, María Paula Ghiso. Learning from Artistic Encounters: A Teacher’s Experience with Young Children’s Paintings of Racial Bus Segregation, Candace R. Kuby. Transactional Literary Theory in a Diverse School Setting: An Examination of Book-Making with First Graders in a Pre-Service Teacher Education Literacy Course, Erin T. Miller. Playing Star Wars under the (Teacher’s) Radar: Detecting Kindergartners’ Action Texts and Embodied Literacies, Karen Wohlwend. Appendix: Perspectives and Provocations: Elephants.

More info and to purchase a copy:
http://www.infoagepub.com/products/Perspectives-and-Provocations-in-Early-Childhood-Education

Shiny New Membership Pamphlet!

It's sometimes tricky to remember that, despite the soaring temperatures we've seen across the country in the past few weeks, the start of school is just around the corner. Those of us behind the scenes at the ECE Assembly of NCTE have been hard at work this summer, prepping for the upcoming school year and have some exciting things in the works!

One of our summer tasks was to create a shiny new membership pamphlet to help expand our membership. We seek to create a rich conversation around issues and trends in early childhood education and the more voices joining in, the better the conversation. That said, we have a favor to ask: could you help us get our new pamphlet out to people who would enrich our conversation? The complete pamphlet is located here, ready to spread the word about our organization.

A thank you in advance! And now? Let's go enjoy these last few weeks of summer! Personally, I'm going to go find a good book and beach to read it on. Happy summer!

Board of Directors 2007

 Chair
Vivian Vasquez, American University.

Assistant Chair
Mariana Souto-Manning, Teacher's College

Treasurer
Dinah Volk

Secretary
Shari Frost, National-Louis University

Affirmative Action Committee Chair
Carmen Medina

Members of the Board
Wayne Serebrin
Celia Genishi
Anne Haas Dyson
Susi Long
Jeannine Piacenza
Amy Evans

Board of Directors 2009

Chair
Vivian Vasquez

Assistant Chair
Mariana Souto-Manning

Treasurer
Dinah Volk

Secretary
Shari Frost

Newsletter Editor
Jeff Wood

Affirmative Action Committee Chair
Carmen Medina

Affirmative Action Committee
Carmen Medina, Chair Indiana University
Rochelle, Dail University of Alabama
Erin Miller South Carolina
Carmen Tisdale South Carolina

Members of the Board
Victoria Dixon-Mokeba
Amy Evans
Anne Haas Dyson
Celia Genishi
Susi Long
Julia Lopez-Robertson
Becky McGraw
Jeannine Piacenza
Wayne Serebrin
Katie Wood-Ray

USC Latino Conference

The University of South Carolina is hosting the Latino Children's and Young Adult Literature and Literacies Conference to celebrate Latino children's literature and literacies.  Click on the link below to find out more about this wonderful event. 

USC- Latino Conference

 

The Early Literacy Educator of the Year Award

Early Childhood Education Assembly

An Assembly of the National Council of Teachers of English

The Early Literacy Educator of the Year Award

The Early Literacy Educator of the Year Award recognizes one master teacher or teacher educator in the area of early childhood focusing on language and literacy development. The award is presented during the NCTE Annual Convention. Submission materials are due in June 15, 2012 (postmarked).  We encourage both early childhood teachers and teacher educators to submit.

For more information on submission materials and details please contact: Carmen L. Medina at cmedina@indiana.edu

Tuscon School District - Banning Books and Cultural Studies

I do not think they should ban cultural studies in Arizona. I think you should be able to learn your own culture. In my fourth grade class, we learn social studies through a text book. That textbook is mostly story from a European-American perspective. It would be horrible to open up a text book and not hear your story. Ella Miller, 9 years old

Just barely out of her Early Childhood years, Ella wrote to protest the latest round of Arizona book banning and the banning of Ethnic Studies. Ella is a child immersed in a world where critical literacy matters, a world that is currently banned in the Tuscon Unified School District as school officials cite that the Ethnic Studies classes and books used in those are classes are “designed to promote ethnic chauvinism" (Horne, 2010).

Ella understands that most textbooks and school curricula are told from a European-American perspective and that it is unfair– unfair to her, to her friends of Color, to her White friends, to children everywhere. She understands that courses like Mexican American Studies and African American History are essential to all of us as we must come to see that this country was built by the contributions of far more than the European Americans highlighted in most textbooks and curricula. This is the beginning of a young citizen’s understanding that there are power issues at work as dominant cultural and linguistic groups work to maintain a status quo that reflects a narrow view of what matters. Ella feels strongly that this single story (Adichie, 2009) excludes many voices, and feeling the importance of her own sense of identity, she senses that these new regulations will adversely affect the identities of other children, those who are most often excluded from the dominant narrative – children of Color, children whose native language is not English, and children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. She also understands that her one voice, the voice of a child, matters and can make a difference.

The Affirmative Action Committee of Early Childhood Education Assembly writes in strong opposition to the recent round of book banning and the banning of the ethnic studies program in Tucson, Arizona. We believe, like Ella, that children who are given a steady diet of dominant perspectives through school curricula and textbooks are unfairly positioned in schools. We believe, like Ella, in the worth and value of multiple perspectives, including those most often marginalized by schools. We believe, like Ella, that we should not continue to marginalize, minoritize, devalue and demean students from already marginalized communities; that we should not keep them from passionate spaces for learning that are grounded in an affirmation of them and the people they represent; rather, we should teach young children the contributions from other cultures are a part of the rich mosaic that is this country. We also believe, like Ella, that children and adults can be peaceful change-agents in the world if they are taught to question the status quo and challenge the assumption that one narrative is fair or that one narrative is enough.

~ Erin Miller, ECEA Affirmative Action Committee

ECEA New Officers as of NCTE Convention 2011

ECEA New Officers as of NCTE Convention 2011:

Chair: Mariana Souto Manning
Assistant Chair: Dinah Volk
Treasurer: Laurie Katz
Secretary: Carol Felderman
Newsletter Editor Jeffrey Wood

Board of Directors
Laura Herring
Carmen Medina
Dahlia Bouari
Dana Bentley
Siobian Minish
Katie Stover
Lenny Sanchez

NCTE proposals due January 20th

The date is approaching. NCTE online proposals due January 20. Join the ECEA in Vegas!

NCTE proposals due January 20th

Happy New Year! Submit a proposal for NCTE. Online proposals are due January 20. See you in Vegas!