Hi all
It is my turn to write the weekly post. I have been sitting on developing information for the last several weeks. As many of you know, I directed a young adult literature conference at Louisiana State University. One of the big draws for moving to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas was the opportunity to direct the Gayle A. Zeiter Literacy Development Center. Historically, among the good work the center provides, it has hosted a one day spring conference on Children’s and Young Adult Literature.
The tradition will continue.
The single day spring event will be March 5, 2016 and will serve as an introduction to the 2016 Gayle A. Zeiter Young Adult and Children’s Literature Conference that will be held the week of June 13 to June 17, 2016. The event will hosted by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the College of Education, and the Department of Teaching & Learning along with a variety of partners that will be revealed along the way to June.
There is a big announcements today and more to come at the annual conference of the National Council of Teacher of English (NCTE) and the ALAN Workshop. Most of the keynotes are in place. Of course, the link to the conference at the top of this blog will always have updated material and provide links as they are developed. If you are interested in participating as someone who conducts a workshop or a breakout session, we will have a link for proposals in early December. We will also continue to outline registration information for academics, librarians, teachers, parents, or, dare I say it, any reader of great young adult or children’s literature. Before too long, my website and the Zeiter Center webpage will have links to how you can join in with the fun. The blog will also highlight the novels of our participating authors periodically.
It is my turn to write the weekly post. I have been sitting on developing information for the last several weeks. As many of you know, I directed a young adult literature conference at Louisiana State University. One of the big draws for moving to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas was the opportunity to direct the Gayle A. Zeiter Literacy Development Center. Historically, among the good work the center provides, it has hosted a one day spring conference on Children’s and Young Adult Literature.
The tradition will continue.
The single day spring event will be March 5, 2016 and will serve as an introduction to the 2016 Gayle A. Zeiter Young Adult and Children’s Literature Conference that will be held the week of June 13 to June 17, 2016. The event will hosted by the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the College of Education, and the Department of Teaching & Learning along with a variety of partners that will be revealed along the way to June.
There is a big announcements today and more to come at the annual conference of the National Council of Teacher of English (NCTE) and the ALAN Workshop. Most of the keynotes are in place. Of course, the link to the conference at the top of this blog will always have updated material and provide links as they are developed. If you are interested in participating as someone who conducts a workshop or a breakout session, we will have a link for proposals in early December. We will also continue to outline registration information for academics, librarians, teachers, parents, or, dare I say it, any reader of great young adult or children’s literature. Before too long, my website and the Zeiter Center webpage will have links to how you can join in with the fun. The blog will also highlight the novels of our participating authors periodically.
Let me invite you to start reading the novels and academic work of our keynotes.
The March event will feature the wonderful Jim Blasingame as an academic keynote. He has been a mentor and a friend since I was in graduate school. He is an engaging presenter who has forgotten more about young adult literature than I pretend to know. The authors who are committed for the March date are Bill Konigsberg and Tom Leveen. Imagine how excited I was last week when Bryan Gillis referenced them both in his blog posting. Both of them have books that engage adolescents.
The March event will feature the wonderful Jim Blasingame as an academic keynote. He has been a mentor and a friend since I was in graduate school. He is an engaging presenter who has forgotten more about young adult literature than I pretend to know. The authors who are committed for the March date are Bill Konigsberg and Tom Leveen. Imagine how excited I was last week when Bryan Gillis referenced them both in his blog posting. Both of them have books that engage adolescents.
The list of committed keynotes for the summer conference is so good that is already time to fix the dates on your calendar and plan your trip to Las Vegas. It is never too early to lobby your principal or district for professional development money. The theme of the conference will focus on diversity and will echo the goals of the We Need Diverse Books campaign. During the summer conference, one of the ongoing activities will be to encourage participants to create and post their own statements about diverse books.
Here is the introduction to the Keynotes:
The academic keynotes will be Donalyn Miller, Steven T. Bickmore, Sophia Sarigianides, and Alan Sitomer. You should explore their webpages and read their academic work. The blog will be discussing more of what they have to offer over the next few months.
Here is the introduction to the Keynotes:
The academic keynotes will be Donalyn Miller, Steven T. Bickmore, Sophia Sarigianides, and Alan Sitomer. You should explore their webpages and read their academic work. The blog will be discussing more of what they have to offer over the next few months.
The author keynotes are a fantastic group and their novels cause us to consider diversity in a number of ways. The order of presentation is entirely arbitrary, each one of these authors could be the headline presenter for any conference. The first is Virginia Euwer Wolff. Virginia won the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature in 2001 for her novel True Believer. The second is Jason Reynolds. Jason recently won the John Steptoe New Talent Award for When I Was the Greatest. If you follow young adult literature at all, you know about Jason’s new book, All American Boys with Brendan Kiely has the YA community very excited. The press is recognizing this powerful book on television and radio across the US. Please check it out. The third author is Meg Medina. Meg is the winner of the Pura Belpre Award in 2014 for Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick your Ass. Come on, who doesn’t want to read this book? The fourth author is Andrew Smith. I have been a fan since I read Winger. (I keep wondering how I didn't find him sooner.) His novel, Grasshopper Jungle, is a 2015 Printz Award Honor book. If you loved Kurt Vonnegut as much as I did you can rest easy knowing that there is a writer out there keeping it weird. Our final author is Alan Sitomer. Alan has agreed to attend the conference as both an academic and an expert teacher, but he will also talk about his life and expertise as a writer. Come join the fun. If you have a great story about one of these authors or a powerful experience with one of their books--maybe you need to be a guest contributor.
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