Date: Saturday, September 23, 2023

Time: 8:00 A.M. - 4:00 P.M. (Light breakfast and lunch included with registration)

Location: The University of Arizona, Tucson

Registration & Membership: $50 per person

Proposal Submission Deadline: June 30, 2023

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The Arizona English Teachers Association, your state affiliate of the National Council of Teachers of English, invites you to submit a proposal for the 2023 AETA Conference: Cultivating Spaces for Healing and Joy through English Language Arts. 

We - educators and students - have not yet recovered from the devastating effects of the last three years marked by a global pandemic, disparities in health outcomes, police brutality against communities of color, gun violence in schools, and more recently, challenges to students’ right to read literature that reflects their cultures, concerns, and experiences. Navigating and sustaining resistance to social and systemic injustices such as these requires creating spaces where we can heal, restore, and nurture our spirits in order to grow and develop as teachers and learners (hooks, 2015).

This year, we are honored to welcome Dr. Jamila Lyiscott, to help us think and work through the issues that challenge teachers in the state of Arizona and beyond and to help us cultivate spaces for healing and joy through the English Language Arts. Dr. Lyiscott, aka Dr. J, is an aspiring way-maker, a community-engaged scholar, nationally renowned speaker, and the author of Black Appetite. White Food: Issues of Race, Voice, and Justice Within and Beyond the Classroom. She is most well known for her TED.com video, “3 Ways to Speak English,” which has over 5 million views. Dr. Lyiscott currently serves as Associate Professor of Social Justice Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she is the co-founder and co-director of the Center of Racial Justice and Youth Engaged Research. Her scholarship and activism work together to explore, assert, and defend the value of Black life globally. Her research examines the liberatory capacity of literacies in the lives of youth of color, racial healing, youth-led research, and the capacity of African Diasporic cultures to transgress white coloniality. 

As you write your proposal, we invite you to reflect on the restorative and transformative practices you have made this year towards healing and cultivating joy in your schools, classrooms, and communities. Consider the following questions:
 

• What new insights about teaching and learning did you discover in the past year? How have they challenged or restored you and your students? What strategies have they offered to enact more just and equitable literacies in your classroom?

• What changes have you made in your practice to turn your English Language Arts classroom into a restorative space for you and your students? 

• How have you recognized and responded to the needs of your English Language Arts students?

• What teaching strategies have you used to promote social, academic, and community wellness with your students, especially those who come from communities that continue to be resilient in the face of adversity? 

• How have you navigated policies about “divisive concepts,” book bans/challenges, or other obstacles to meet the needs of your students?

• How have you used literature, media, and writing with your students to engage current social issues and restore agency and hope for the future?

• How have you created nurturing sites of resistance within and beyond your school community to grow and develop as a teacher? 

We know that each of you does something transformative for your students, schools, and communities. Please share what you are doing with AETA!

*We especially encourage educators from multiple-marginalized backgrounds (based on race, class, gender, sexuality, and/or disability), first-time presenters, early career, and rural educators to submit a proposal.