Dreaming and Creating Our Shared Futures
“I was dream in' when I wrote this, Forgive me if it goes astray.”
Each day students of all ages enter our classrooms still harboring dreams from the night before as well as dreams to which they may cling throughout their lives. As humans, we hold on to and cherish dreams because we know their potency and their potential—to inspire, to guide, sometimes to frighten. To give voice to our dreams is an act of literacy.
The greatest moments of social change and human innovation are born out of dreams. From the latest technical advances to the ancient stories that bind us together, it is individual and collective imagination that powers our society. Through voicing dreams for and with each other, equity and justice incubate. Sometimes warping and bending our past experiences, our dreams elucidate and instruct. In similar fashion, we can teach and learn alongside dreams in our classrooms today, if we so choose.
Providing space for our students to learn alongside each other’s dreams is an act of teaching. Collaborating to create what once wasn’t from the threads of our own imaginations: that is an act of learning. The waking world’s reams and rubrics drive much of what we do as English teachers, but we do not need to drown in a deluge of disconnected assessment. Instead, in the spirit of shared imagination, I invite us to take our and our students’ dreams seriously. For the 2025 NCTE Annual Convention, let’s embrace the idyllic possibilities of play, of storytelling, of asking what if and what if and what if.
Each day students of all ages enter our classrooms still harboring dreams from the night before as well as dreams to which they may cling throughout their lives. As humans, we hold on to and cherish dreams because we know their potency and their potential—to inspire, to guide, sometimes to frighten. To give voice to our dreams is an act of literacy.
The greatest moments of social change and human innovation are born out of dreams. From the latest technical advances to the ancient stories that bind us together, it is individual and collective imagination that powers our society. Through voicing dreams for and with each other, equity and justice incubate. Sometimes warping and bending our past experiences, our dreams elucidate and instruct. In similar fashion, we can teach and learn alongside dreams in our classrooms today, if we so choose.
Providing space for our students to learn alongside each other’s dreams is an act of teaching. Collaborating to create what once wasn’t from the threads of our own imaginations: that is an act of learning. The waking world’s reams and rubrics drive much of what we do as English teachers, but we do not need to drown in a deluge of disconnected assessment. Instead, in the spirit of shared imagination, I invite us to take our and our students’ dreams seriously. For the 2025 NCTE Annual Convention, let’s embrace the idyllic possibilities of play, of storytelling, of asking what if and what if and what if.
About Us
What are we dreaming about?
Consider the primary obstacles in our past and in the present moment for which we might dream solutions, alternatives, and synergies. We invite proposals that name and seek dreaming practices for addressing the present, waking world.
What are we dreaming about?
As stewards of the teaching profession and of the broader domain of the English language arts, our dreams must be resolutely purposeful. We must engage in social dreaming that advocates for the needs of the varied, marginalized communities whom we serve. Consider the dreams for and of varied and diverse learners and how our pedagogies are intertwined with laboratory dreaming.
What are we dreaming about?
Our dreams are networked to a broader, more-than-human world. As teachers, who are we in conversation with as we support speculative, dreaming practices in our classrooms and in our communities? We invite co-presented sessions that invite in the voices and dreams of our students and the network of individuals we learn alongside.
When we teach our students, it is far more than teaching for that moment and far more than teaching a particular skill in isolation.
When we teach our students, the larger, more far-reaching purpose is for our scholars to learn to use the lessons from the classroom to transform their own lives and the lives of others.
“I was dream in' when I wrote this, Forgive me if it goes astray.”
- Prince, “1999”-
This call for proposals speaks to just that.
As you craft your proposals, I encourage you to consider one or more of the following questions:
- How do we make learning actionable, relevant, purposeful, and engaging for students?
- How do you help students use their learning in other school spaces or in out-of-school spaces to make a difference?
- How do we prepare scholars to think and collaborate?
- How does your teaching impact learning for students and families?
- How do students use their literacies to enact change in the world?
- How do we prepare literacy educators to teach and engage scholars?