Dear KATE family,
It is with great excitement that I welcome you to our revitalized and revamped KATE Blog. Five months have come and gone since our 2019 annual conference, and I’ve found myself craving the connection, inspiration, and collegiality that the conference always seems to generate. I’ve especially found myself craving these things now more than ever as both my personal world and teaching world have been turned upside down due to COVID-19. Combining that craving with an outstanding KATE Board meeting this past Saturday made me realize that now is the perfect time to roll out this blog. Currently, we could all use a little more connection and inspiration, and it is my hope that this blog can provide just that. Zoom meetings/web chats have been the name of the game lately, and while I’m a little worn out on having to collaborate via computer screens, I am certainly grateful for the ideas that I have been able to create because of them. Thanks to Zoom, I was able to collaborate with the KATE website committee on a format for how we would like this blog to operate and function. I’m so excited with what we’ve come up with, and I think you are going to enjoy it too. For April, our blog’s theme and focus is going to be National Poetry Month. Poetry can generate strong feelings amongst readers, both positive and negative, which is why I’m so excited to explore it further with our KATE community. I personally have a love/hate relationship with poetry, and know that I have so much to learn by reading what other members have to share. To begin the blog’s poetry exploration, KATE member April Pameticky will be kick-starting our blog posts with her personal connection to poetry. She will be sharing what poetry means to her during hard times such as these, and also providing readers with prompts and suggestions for engaging with poetry and creating their own. The remainder of April will highlight different aspects of poetry and how it fits into our lives both as teachers and as consumers/creators of the craft. Readers will be given the opportunity to share resources and activities that they use in their classrooms to engage students with poetry, as well as ways they incorporate and interact with poetry in their personal lives. I’m ecstatic about what this month will bring for you, our readers, as well as this blog as a whole. KATE has been working tirelessly behind the scenes to ensure that our website provides content for all educators who visit our site, with this blog being one of those perks. While we are starting small, I have high hopes for how this platform will continue to grow and evolve. I am constantly inspired by the ideas and passion that are generated by this group of people, and I know that this positive energy will continue to manifest itself as people engage with both our posts and each other. I want to leave you with a quote by one of the most renowned poets, Emily Dickinson. May it provide you with hope as you navigate the next few months, and also encapsulate the hope that I have for this new blogging endeavor. “Hope is the thing with feathers That perches in the soul And sings the tune without the words And never stops at all” Until next time, Michaela Liebst
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Abstract
English language arts is a vulnerable subject. It involves self-expression, serious reflection, and deep discussion in a way that I did not understand when completing my pre-service teaching program. Entering this profession last year, I was pleasantly surprised by the complex subjects my students were eager to write about. Excited, I grabbed ahold of their engagement. We used it as fuel. My students have written essays, podcasts, and blogs on their home-life struggles, the unbelievable pressures of high school, and the microaggressive acts of racism teachers can not quite catch in the hallways. Together, my students and I learned that writing and talking about these issues creates positive change. I loved giving my students the chance to write about and discuss hard topics in my classroom. On the days when we cleared out the mumbo-jumbo of “normal” class expectations, when we simply talked and wrote about real world issues, it was those days that were special. They were meaningful. My kids asked for more days like them, and I tried to honor that request. Andrea Marshbank Seaman High School Abstract
Each year, books are challenged and/or banned from public school libraries across the country and most recently there has been an increased number of books with diverse characters banned from public schools. Removing books from public schools restricts students’ abilities to read and reflect upon these texts. Students have a right to access books depicting characters and events that they can relate to and characters and events that they can learn from. These books can become "mirrors" to the reader or "windows" to the world around the reader. Administrators, teachers, librarians, students, parents, and community members should advocate for access to books of all types for all students. Carolyn L. Carlson Washburn University Abstract As a newly minted teacher, I have begun to look back with fresh appreciation for my year of student teaching and the many people who helped shape and inform my ideas about education. Among those who left their impression on me is one student, Phan, who expanded my vision for the English classroom as a safe place to express and reflect. From this student I learned that a teacher can support by listening without judgment even when she or he does not fully understand. Author
Jenni Bader, Wichita State University Jenni Bader is a recent Wichita State University College of Education graduate and a first-year English teacher at Winfield High School. She has felt the call to serve through teaching ever since first grade when she read about Anne Sullivan in a chapter book detailing the life of Helen Keller. Although her path to professional teaching has been long and winding, Jenni has found many opportunities to share her care for people and her joy in learning along the way. She looks forward to the possibility of each new day and helping each student realize his or her full potential. She can be reached at nachalah@sbcglobal.net Abstract Over the course of history, various groups have challenged, banned, and burned texts out of fear and the desire to control the thoughts and beliefs of a populace. Dictatorial regimes such as Hitler's Nazi-controlled Germany used "bonfires [to] 'cleanse' the German spirit of the 'un-German' influence of communist, pacifist, and, above all, Jewish thought" (Merveldt 524). Modern religious fundamentalism seeks to control a populace either through fear and indoctrination like the ultra-conservative, nearly-literal witch hunt of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series when religious leaders of various Protestant denominations feared that the hit young adult book series would teach impressionable minds actual witchcraft. One of the most famous and still frequently taught banned books is Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. In this paper the argument is made for the teaching of banned books by a case-analysis of Twain's text that considers the historical context, positive and negative aspects of the text, the harm of censorship, the value of free speech, and how frequently-challenged texts promote critical thinking for students. Author Biography
Nathan G. Whitman, Derby High School Nathan Whitman is an English teacher at Derby High School who has an MA in English, a BA in Secondary Education with an emphasis in English 6-12, and a BA in Creative Writing, as well as an endorsement in English to Speakers of Other Languages from Wichita State University. In addition to heading the school's GSA sponsor, he is also a founder of the Voices of Kansas journal published by the Kansas Association of Teachers of English, a 2014 Horizon Award Winner, and a Kansas Exemplary Educators Network Member. He can be reached at nwhitman@usd260.com. Implementing Vocabutoons in the English Language Arts Classroom: Drawing Their Way to Success10/3/2017 Abstract Although vocabulary acquisition remains a critical to literacy development, teachers infrequently devote classroom time to vocabulary exercises. In this article, the author demonstrates the use of "vocabutoons" as an instructional activity which draws upon students’ multiple literacies—in particular, visual literacy—in order to foster vocabulary development. Tooning is based upon the belief that "[p]roficient readers visualize what they read as they construct meaning from a text" (Onofrey & Leikam 682). Representative artwork created by English Education majors enrolled in a young adult literature course at a university in the Midwest will be featured to highlight the tooning process. Author Biography
William C. Sewell, Dakota State University Dr. William Sewell is assistant professor of English Education and Composition at Dakota State University in Madison, South Dakota. Dr. Sewell taught secondary English, forensics, debate, and theatre in Kansas schools for 12 years. His research interests include multimodal intertextuality, content area literacy, active learning strategies, young adult literature, and middle and secondary English education. He can be reached at william.sewell@dsu.edu. |
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