Join the Two Writing Teachers blog for the Slice of Life Challenge.
As I sit at home rummaging through my notes and photos from NCTE, I wonder how I can capture this amazing weekend in a single post. Then I wrote my title, “A Slice of NCTE.” I can do a slice, a snippet, a taste.
The overarching message that I came away with was equity.
From Katherine and Randy Bomer, as they accepted the NCTE award for Outstanding Elementary Educator, equity is communicated in their core values. Meet every child with an air of expectancy and listen with love. When I attended Katherine’s session “Appreciative Response for Writers: Words and Ways to Reclaim our Voices and Instill Agency in All Students,” once again the word equity arose as she and her teacher educators gave very practical ways to give students what they need in feedback to writing. I stopped by Corwin Books to buy Patty McGee’s new book Feedback that Moves Writers Forward. In the session, Patty showed us how to honor what students are already doing and yet, move them toward growth. I look forward to digging into this book.
From Jason Reynolds, the equity message was evident in his acceptance speech for the NCTE Charlotte Huck Award. The story of Ghost is based on Jason’s real life friend, Matthew. The real Ghost also loved to eat sunflower seeds. Jason challenged us teachers by asking us what kind of sunflower eater would we be. One who puts the whole seed in your mouth and sucks all the salt off to spit it out whole? One who chews the whole seed and spits it out? Or one who carefully finds the perfect place to crack the shell, hides the tiny seed in a safe place, then takes out the hard, cracked shell? #sunflowerseedchallenge.
Jack, the lemur, eats sunflower seeds slowly.
From a panel of moving educators (Sara Ahmed, Katharine Hale, Jessica Lifshitz, Donalyn Miller, Katie Muhtaris, Pernille Ripp, and Katherine Sokolowski), all women who have a story, a story of inequity, a story of how they were called to stand up and stand out for justice. There wasn’t a dry eye in the room. I was more than moved by their stories. I resolved to be better, to do better. I resolved to carefully eat my sunflower seeds and offer a place a safety, a place of equity, a home for all student voices.
Reflections on the Teche 
