To see some of the leading influencers in literacy, look no further than the International Literacy Association 2016 Conference & Exhibits cadre of Featured Speakers. Among them are authors, researchers, bloggers, and consultants, but all 10 began their careers in the classroom and speak to educators from a place of experience. From tips on focused lesson planning to explanations on the latest educational research, these speakers will cover a lot of ground on a variety of topics and should not be missed.
Join us at “From Literacy to Connected Literacy—Strategies to Engage All Learners,” led by Pernille Ripp on Saturday, July 9. This session will focus on five ways educators can reimagine literacy in their classrooms: student voice, student choice, global collaboration, authentic audience, and meaningful technology integration.
Ripp is a seventh-grade English teacher in Wisconsin. She founded the Global Read Aloud, a global reading project that has connected more than 1,000,000 students internationally through the joint reading of a selected book. She is an avid user of technology in the classroom and runs a popular teaching blog to connect to educators around the world. She is the author of two books, Passionate Learners: How to Engage and Empower Your Students (Routledge) and Empowered Schools, Empowered Students: Creating Connected and Invested Learners (Corwin).
“Teaching Practices and Instructional Strategies That Position Students Closer to Reading and Writing Excellence,” will be led by Kelly Gallagher. Gallagher is an award-winning expert in literacy education with a 30-year career as a teacher, author, and consultant. He has been active in several key literacy programs, including as the president of ILA’s Secondary Reading Group. His most recent book, In the Best Interest of Students: Staying True to What Works in the ELA Classroom (Stenhouse), was published last year.
In “The Power of Focus: From Instruction to Independence,” led by Debbie Diller, you’ll learn about the best ways to keep students focused and engaged throughout the school day, building off of state standards and applying specific classroom needs to valuable lesson plans will close out Saturday.
Diller is an educator, author, and national literacy consultant. Over the span of her 40-year career, Diller has taught in the classroom, trained teachers in schools across North America, and spoken at numerous conferences. She has published several books, including her most recent, Growing Independent Learners: From Literacy Standards to Stations, K-3(Stenhouse).
Start your Sunday, July 10 with “Forging Relationships in New and Known Lands: Your Role as a Reading Ambassador,” a session led by Donalyn Miller and John Schumacher.
Miller is a middle school language arts and social studies teacher who is a major contributor to the Nerdy Book Club. Her latest book, Reading in the Wild: The Book Whisperer's Keys to Cultivating Lifelong Reading Habits, is a collection of responses from adult readers that Miller uses to teach sustainable reading habits to students. One of Miller’s partners in crime in the Nerdy Book Club, Schumacher is a K–5 teacher-librarian who maintains the popular blog, Mr. Schu Reads. He’s a proponent of using book trailers and tailoring book choices to individual students.
Gravity Goldberg, a popular contributor to Literacy Daily, will lead “Using Mindsets and Moves to Develop Truly Independent Readers."
Goldberg is an educational consultant who works in classrooms across the United States from prekindergarten to college. She specializes in literacy, special education, curriculum, assessment, and learning with technology. A dynamic speaker, Goldberg is widely published, has received numerous teaching awards, and is the coauthor of the book Conferring With Readers: Supporting Each Student’s Growth and Independence.
Afterward, join John Hattie for “The Visible Student,” a session centered on Hattie’s groundbreaking book Visible Learning: A Synthesis of Over 800 Meta-Analyses Relating to Achievement (Routledge). During his session, learn what it means for students to become visible learners and play a key role in the learning process, gathering knowledge accumulated through years of research and analysis.
Hattie is one of the world’s most influential education researchers. His work has been published by numerous publications, and his Visible Learning follow-up, Visible Learning for Teachers: Maximizing Impact on Learning (Routledge), is hugely successful in the education field. Hattie is currently the director of the Melbourne Educational Research Institute at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
For a walk on the wild side Monday, July 11, don’t miss when Ruth Culham shares how “The Writing Thief Goes on a Reading Rampage."
Culham is president of The Culham Writing Company and writing department editor for ILA’s journal The Reading Teacher. A former teacher and winner of the English Teacher of the Year award in Montana, Culham has written several books about teaching students how to write, including The Writing Thief: Using Mentor Texts to Teach the Craft of Writing.
After Culham, Stephen Peters, a favorite from last year’s Closing General Session, will present “Creating Conditions to Succeed Against the Odds."
Peters is the CEO of The Peters Group, a national education consulting company, after a lengthy career in the classroom starting as a teacher and ending as director of secondary education. He is the founder of the nationally recognized Gentlemen’s and Ladies Club programs, which work with at-risk honors students throughout the United States. He is the author of a number of books, including the award-winning Choosing to Believe: Creating a Framework for School Success.
Cornelius Minor closes out this year’s Featured Speaker series with “New Literacies for the Leaders of New Movements."
Minor is a staff developer at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project in New York. He spent years teaching in middle schools in the Bronx and Brooklyn and now works with teachers and leaders across the globe to support literacy reform. He is a coauthor of Units of Study in Argument, Information, and Narrative Writing, Grade 8.
The ILA 2016 Conference will be July 9–11 in Boston, MA, with more than 6,000 attendees eager to cultivate new teaching practices. With over 300 sessions, including several new additions to the schedule, and the popular Preconference Institutes on July 8, the weekend is sure to be a memorable one. Learn more about what’s coming up at this summer’s conference. Register today for the conference to take advantage of special Early Bird pricing.
Nicole Lund is ILA’s communications intern.