MCELA Mattersprograms, ideas, connections |
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October 2022 Do you know about our IDEA Collective? The IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Access) Collective focuses on an important goal: Support Maine educators as they explore ways to develop materials and practices for inclusion, diversity, equity, and access. In particular, MCELA invites educators to think about, discuss, and take steps to address issues related to racism, income disparity, gender identity, environmental justice, equity, genocide, and indigenous sovereignty. Each month, the IDEA Collective of MCELA will share a resource for educators to explore and consider using in their practice and with their students. This month we highlight some resources related to intellectual freedom. Schools, communities, and libraries have witnessed a surge of book challenges in recent months. Although Banned Book Week (September 19-24) has passed, teachers and students need resources to guide discussions about these books and to arm themselves against attacks on intellectual freedom. Todd McKinley, MCELA Vice President maine.ela@gmail.com MCELA website: mainecela.org |
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| Read: PEN America recently shared their key findings of a report about legislative efforts to enforce education gag orders. The authors write, “Educational gag orders are state legislative efforts to restrict teaching about topics such as race, gender, American history, and LGBTQ+ identities in K–12 and higher education.” Consider reviewing aspects of this report with your colleagues and discuss how you can take steps to protect yourself, your colleagues, and your community against these insidious attempts to silence important voices. |
View, Listen, and Discuss: The Maine Association of School Libraries will host a dine and discuss with Laurence Alexander. Because MCELA supports this event, members receive a discount registration. For more information, visit MASL’s registration page. Also, look for a library near you hosting this event! |
Get Involved: In response to the efforts to censor books, NCTE has launched This Story Matters. YOU can help by writing a rationale for a specific book. These rationales help your colleagues and your students access stories that matter! |
Looking for more? Check out the NCTE Position Statement on “Resolution on the Need for Diverse Children’s and Young Adult Books.” Also, visit NCTE’s Intellectual Freedom Center for ways to address censorship in your school and community. |
We've got a few spots left! Join us for fall online book study of Sparks in the Dark by Travis Crowder and Todd Nesloney 5 weeks in October & November 4:00 - 5:15 via Zoom with an author Q&A the last week. |
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Registration is LIVE! In-person conference March 17, 2023 Poetry Night March 16, 2023 Portland, ME |
For an annual membership, we are asking for a donation of $30. Membership benefits: - Free online programming like this fall's book study of Sparks in the Dark
- Discounted conference and special events registration
- Access to member's only content on the MCELA website including previous year's programming recordings and documents
Did you know you can put the cost of membership for your entire English department into your district budget? When it's time to request funds from your district for next year's budget, consider adding a line for membership for MCELA for all ELA teachers in your school. |
Reading, Writing, & Thinking Matters |
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MCELA's Northwords receives NCTE'S 2022 Affiliate Journal of Excellence Award! 1 of 4 affiliate journals nationwide! Have you taken a look yet? Articles on What Matters Most - Revisiting What We Value by Ryan Dippre, University of Maine
- Belaying Through the Pandemic by Kim Barnes, Caribou Middle School
- Poem: Your Constant Smile by John Emerson, Retired Educator
- Unpacking Cultural Competence by Cindy Dean, Ed.D., University of Maine at Augusta
- Classroom Cultivation by Patti Forster, NBCT, Camden Hills Regional HS
Brassil Award Winners & Finalists Spotlight - High School Winner Audrey Ennamorati, Medomak Valley High School
- Middle School Winner Margaret Adams, Kingsfield Elementary School
- High School Finalist Beth Carlson, Kennebunk High School
- High School Finalist Sara Cole-Pardun, Camden Hills Regional H.S.
- Middle School Finalist Nicole Matthews, Windsor Elementary School
- Middle School Finalist Todd McKinley, J.A. Leonard Middle School
- Middle School Finalist Meghan Rounds, Gotham Middle School
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NEATE's 2022 Virtual Conference
October 21 | 8:15-3:30
Literacy as Agency: Empowering Teachers and Students through Reading, Writing, and Voice Featuring Dr. Kim Parker & Shawn Peters More information here: https://www.neate.org/conference |
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Here's what Todd McKinley, MCELA Vice President, is reading right now: |
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“All around me, my friends are talking, joking, laughing. Outside is the camp, the barbed wire, the guard towers, the city, the country that hates us.
We are not free.
But we are not alone.”
We Are Not Free, is the collective account of a tight-knit group of young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American citizens, whose lives are irrevocably changed by the mass U.S. incarcerations of World War II.
Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco.
Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted.
Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps.
In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart. ~Goodreads summary |
| Cut through the mystique to learn the real drivers of great school leadership
Leverage Leadership 2.0 answers the basic question: what do great school leaders do that separates them from the rest? Rooted in the observation and training of over 20,000 school leaders worldwide, Leverage Leadership 2.0 offers a practical, updated and easier-to-use follow-up to the original, with field-tested techniques and actionable advice. As educational leaders around the world implement Leverage Leadership ideas, their collective stories have revealed a simple framework by which the seven levers may be implemented: See It, Name It, Do It. This book aligns classic Leverage Leadership principles with this proven framework to streamline implementation and help good leaders become great. Expert discussion and real-life success stories prove that effective leadership is not about innate charisma, charm, or personality--it's about how a leader uses their time. ~Goodreads summary |
| A vivid portrait collection of past and present Americans speaking truth to power
The first volume of Robert Shetterly's Americans Who Tell the Truth portrait series, Portraits of Racial Justice takes a multimedia, interdisciplinary approach, blending art and history with today’s issues concerning social, environmental, and economic fairness. Shetterly's paintings, as well as profiles of those portrayed, illuminate a community of people not only willing to recognize the shortcomings of America’s history, but most importantly, individuals who offer their visions of a better world moving forward.
Starting with Michelle Alexander and ending with Dave Zirin, the diverse array of fifty full-color portraits spans multiple generations and struggles. This volume also includes four original opening essays on racial justice in the United States by Ai-jen Poo, Dave Zirin, Sherri Mitchell, and Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jr., which provide an intersectional response to the long-term goal of diversity and inclusion.
As Shetterly says, “without activism, hope is merely sentimental.” Portraits of Racial Justice, Shetterly’s homage to transformative game-changers and status-quo fighters, provides the inspiration necessary to spark social change. ~Goodreads summary |
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