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SCOA News January 2017 NCTE Standing Committee on Affiliates Resolve to Publish Affiliate leaders have some of the most creative, current, and innovative ideas about literacy based on experience and insight. This month and this year, members of the Standing Committee on Affiliates encourage all of us to compose and communicate through readily available media.

Respond to blog posts and online discussions on affiliate and NCTE websites. Groups within NCTE’s Connected Community also cover myriad interests. Create original blog entries on affiliate websites and social media outlets, personal sites, and NCTE discussions. Lu Ann McNabb, NCTE Policy & Alliances Associate, specifically suggests writing a blog for Literacy & NCTE. Write opinion pieces, articles, and original artistic work for affiliate publications, particularly newsletters and journals. Develop articles for NCTE publications such as Voices from the Middle and English Journal. See invitations and submission guidelines for individual publications at Write for NCTE.

Regional Conference Calls Coming Soon
SCOA reps will turn a few pages in 2017 in keeping with NCTE’s new motto. Three times during the first half of 2017, regional representatives will telephone or video conference with available affiliate leaders in their regions about predetermined topics. Topics such as membership, finances, and mentoring will resemble those discussed at the Affiliate Leadership Meetings in July. The SCOA Newsletters in February will carry more details.

Follow up on the Convention’s Advocacy Focus
Lu Ann McNabb reminds affiliate leaders of the many state legislative sessions starting soon (or continuing in January 2017). The 2017 State Legislative Calendar lists them all. For board meeting agendas, also remember two other resources for affiliate campaigns:

• Two policy analysts for each state, whose reports are available through links on NCTE’s Policy Analysis Initiative page. The page also has a link to the current policy analysts and their professional affiliations. For more information about contacting individual analysts, email Lu Ann McNabb.
• Many affiliates have worked with states to implement the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). NCTE maintains a record of those contributions.

Find Motivation and Advice in “Professional Knowledge for the Teaching of Writing”
This NCTE guideline presents ten subsections, including “Composing occurs in different modalities and technologies” and “Writing is a tool for thinking.” Each section includes a list of answers to the question “What does this mean for teaching?” Some of the answers include advice we sometime undervalue:

• The process of writing from the inside, that is, what the teachers themselves as writers experience in a host of different writing situations;
• A range of digital writing tools that writers might find useful in their processes, including word processors, databases, outliners, mind mapping software, design software, shared-document websites, and other hardware, software, and Web-based technologies;
• Ways people use writing for personal growth, expression, and reflection, and how to encourage and develop this kind of writing;
• The relationship among rhetorical considerations and decisions about conventions, for example, the conditions under which a dash, a comma, a semicolon, or a full stop might be more effective;
• How teachers who do not speak or understand a student’s home language can embrace and support the use of home languages in the classroom.

Lyrics from Adrian Fogelin’s “NCTE Song”
At the 2016 NCTE Convention, Adrian Fogelin introduced Friday’s General Session with two songs. The second, “The NCTE Song,” she wrote for the occasion. Thanks to Kevin Cordi, a video of the song is available.

She was raised without much, but she got what it took when somebody gave her a book
She climbed up in their lap, they read aloud, finger under the type, she felt so proud
Sounding out words like the dog on the mat, the ball and the bat, the cat in his hat,
She pointed and said, look take a look, see what I found in a book, look what I found in my book

Stone building downtown, called library, the books there were free, her card was the key
Lined up on the shelf, she helped herself, like Christmas gifts under the tree, like Christmas gifts under the tree

And there were picture books, chapter books, stories, stories,
Some real life, some made up, but all of them true
And that girl who grew up on stories, stories
Turned out to be someone a lot like you

Through the door of a book, the whole world’s in reach and you open that door when you teach
But if you get tired and you feel uninspired and you need lots of cool stuff for free
You come out to NCTE

Where there are picture books, chapter books, stories
Some real life, some made up, they’re all around you you see
When you come to NCTE, welcome to NCTE
Welcome to NCTE

Visit us on: NCTE: Shaping Literacy for Tomorrow . . . Today