Finding Inspiration (KATE Conference Reflection)

Attending the KATE Conference amidst so many English teaching professionals who really have a love and passion for this field was really inspiring. I loved seeing how many English teachers were excited about new developments in the field and who wanted to share their expertise with other English teachers. Knowing that there’s an organization that is all about how much English teachers love their job and how much they want to support other English teachers is really amazing.

During the Conference I attended a breakout session during all six of the time slots. While I got something out of all the sessions I attended, two in particular stood out to me as particularly informative and important for me to have been there, so I’m glad that I chose those two sessions!

The first session I went to is actually one of the sessions that gave me some of the most important insight into a topic I don’t know a lot about. It was titled “Pod Save us All: Podcasts, Argument, and Writing in the Classroom.” In this session, the presenter talked about how we can “pod” in our classrooms, and different ways we can use it. She had several different instances including podding for processes and research, podding for argument, podding to tell a story or interview, podding to improve grammar and ACT skills, and podding for poetry and literature. These are all important things that I know I will be covering in my future classes, and to see such a different, innovative way to approach these subjects really opened my mind to what I can do in my classroom.

The reason I went to this session in particular is because I don’t know a lot about podcasts, and in fact have trouble following along to spoken word (such as audiobooks) if I don’t also have the text in front of me. I thought she could help me understand how these can be utilized in my classroom, and she did! She mentioned several times that she loves to use the transcripts of the podcasts along with the audio to better help student comprehension, which is something that helped me out when she was playing the clips. I wasn’t aware there were transcripts, so that’s a good thing to know. In particular, I feel like I learned how I can incorporate non-traditional texts into my classroom, but still use them in a productive way that is actually very similar to how I would use print texts. I particularly liked her point about podding for argument, which can help students map arguments, evaluate arguments, and then ultimately come up with their own! This is something I can see myself adapting for my future classroom.

The other session I found really insightful was “Get Out of the Way and Let Your Students Read: Developing Fluency, Stamina and Empathy Through Student Choice.” These three teachers from Great Bend, Kansas were able to show me the ideas from Book Love by Penny Kittle in action. After reading this book during my summer course Literature for Adolescents, I thought it was really amazing to see other teachers use her ideas, and successfully! They put up Kittle’s quote, “If students do not read the assigned texts, nothing important is happening in your literature classroom.” I thought it was interesting to see the reactions from the teachers in the audience, because most of them hadn’t read Kittle’s book, and they actually did not agree with that quote at all. But as the session went on, I could tell they were inspired by what these three teachers have been implementing and how the students seem to be really benefitting from it as well. I also particularly enjoyed that they mentioned how to track student accountability and how assignments can tie into choice texts. I can see myself using the spreadsheet they provided, and I got several ideas for learning activities to do in my classroom. I appreciated them sharing some online sources with us such as flipgrid and padlet that seemed like a cool way to incorporate digital resources into the class, and also was a way to really personalize assignments!

All in all, I really enjoyed my time at the KATE Conference. Both keynote speakers were really enjoyable, and I could really see their passion for their craft. I had never heard of Sam Weller before, but I found his passion inspiring, and I want to go out and learn more about Ray Bradbury and read some of his texts now. Listening to Jay Asher speak was really cool as well. Hearing an author’s insight into how his books can be useful in the classroom firsthand seems particularly important, and I can see myself using some of his ideas be it with 13 Reasons Why or with other “controversial” griterature (his word, not mine).