• Conference theme: Connections
• Date and location of conference: Friday, October 27, 2023 at Northwestern Oklahoma State University in Alva, Oklahoma 
• Length of conference sessions: 45 minutes 
• Length of session proposals: 100 - 150 words
• Session proposal deadline: EXTENDED to October 1, 2023 at 11:59 PM CST
• To submit session proposals, CLICK HERE 
• Conference registration deadline: October 20, 2023 at 11:59 PM CST
• To register for the conference, CLICK HERE -- $25 registration fee includes OKCTE membership for one year, conference registration, a continental breakfast, lunch, and attendance to the keynote speaker's address.

Connections

Through the acts of reading and writing, we construct vast and intricate networks of ideas and experiences – both lived and imagined – that help us to achieve a richer understanding of ourselves, others, and the connections we have to the world (Freire, Paulo, et al. Literacy: Reading the Word & the World. Bergin & Garvey, 1987). To become literate, then, is to become immersed within a complex system in which various narratives, texts, and media continually proliferate and circulate. In teaching our students to become literate, we show them how to navigate through the system to connect with one another, and we encourage them to engage, deliberately and thoughtfully, with the new perspectives, ideas, and ways of being they encounter therein. 

As you think about the connections you have to texts, colleagues, pedagogical practices, and students, contemplate the ways that those connections might be (or are already being) used to explore, expand, and interrogate the day-to-day teaching and learning realities of English Language Arts and literacy education. You might also choose to consider one or more of the following questions (adapted from NCTE’s 2023 CFP):

• If our lives are composed of vast and interconnected networks, what are the common pathways we and our students take through them? Which narratives and genres are most commonly used to explore them, and which pathways, ideas, and stories are less commonly used? Why? 

• How are typical or entrenched literacy pathways maintained, and why are they maintained? How do we find and connect with new narratives or trailblaze new pathways and media? How do we prompt ourselves and others to engage with new texts? New media? New ideas? 

• How can we help sustain an ever-growing and adapting network of learning and being? What are some larger curricular structures and/or day-to-day lesson plans and assignments that might prompt and support these activities? 

• What are the most meaningful connections we and our students have to people, places, objects, and ideas, and what makes them meaningful? How do we help students make meaning through their new and established connections? 

• How do sociological, emotional, and/or physical realities impact literacy networks? What environmental factors affect how and why teachers and students develop different literacy and pedagogical practices? How might we authentically document, measure, and assess literacy practices and networks?

• How do we make connections to people whose ideas differ from or even contradict our own? What motivates us and our students to read new books, watch new media, listen to and critically engage with new ideas? How do we help students incorporate new and even conflicting ideas and experiences into their lives?

• How do different contexts, cultures, environments, and events impact the growth and stability of students’ and teachers’ networks?