This post was written by NCTE member Liz Thackeray Nelson, reprinted with permission from The CLA Blog.

This year marks my 11th NCTE Annual Convention, but only my second conference in my role as an assistant professor, and my first conference bringing undergraduate students to present. As I reflect on my experiences at previous Conventions, I can see how this form of connected learning has shaped my pedagogy and influenced my academic trajectory. In my early years of attending the Convention, I brought back ideas for integrating multimodal literacies into my classroom, using diverse children’s and young adult literature to motivate students’ reading, and innovative ways for teaching writing. As I both attended and presented at the Convention, I grew as a teacher and a scholar, making a doctoral program a natural next step. Attending the Convention during grad school shifted my focus to more research-based sessions related to children’s and young adult literature and writing, helping me to see how my own questions and ideas fit into the larger academic conversations in the field. During grad school, I was also introduced to a network of mentors and colleagues in CLA, which has also given me opportunities to participate in a larger community that advocates for children’s literature.

In my current role as a teacher educator, my focus has slightly shifted once again. While I am still interested in sessions describing effective pedagogy in K–12 classrooms, I am also interested in sessions focused on preparing preservice teachers. During the Convention in 2023, I attended sessions that explored how teacher educators are using young adult literature with preservice teachers to foster conversations about race and antiracist teaching and sessions that discussed how teacher educators are designing methods courses and implementing assignments to push preservice teachers to develop critical literacy and reflective teaching practices.

While the sessions I attended were enlightening, connecting with colleagues was rejuvenating, and getting several books signed in the Exhibit Hall was exhilarating, perhaps the most rewarding part of the experience was watching my undergraduate students present and discussing their learning from the Convention. Two students reflected on the power they felt when they attended a session on centering Indigenous voices that included a healing tiles activity; another student relished the opportunity to meet Katherine Applegate, one of her favorite childhood authors; and all five informed me that they have already looked up potential Airbnbs in Boston for the 2024 Convention. I hope their induction to the NCTE community is as rewarding as mine was and continues to be.

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