College Experience

NCTE’s College Section Represents a Wide Diversity of Experiences, Reflected by a Variety of Convention Offerings

You’ll find sessions pertinent to teaching English in the two-year college, assessment in composition courses, first-year writing, and current research in the field. If you teach college English, you’ll be intrigued by a range of interesting sessions on composition, literature, reading, and communication. There’s truly something for everyone!

“College Conversations: Learning, Community, and Connections”

Sponsored by the NCTE College Section, this roundtable session is an opportunity, especially for faculty and instructors who teach at the college level, to be in community and share pedagogical insights and responsive teaching practices on a broad variety of ideas that guide postsecondary teaching and learning. This new event, Saturday, Nov. 21, 4:15–5:30 p.m., is for faculty and instructors teaching at four-year colleges and universities, community colleges, and other open-access institutions, as well as those who teach in part-time or dual enrollment settings.

“Leaders of NCTE’s College Section have been working diligently this year to provide fresh, dedicated Annual Convention programming that uniquely supports our members in postsecondary,” said Jonathan Bush, chair of NCTE’s College Section Steering Committee. “We are thrilled to establish this new tradition for college educators!”

New This Year! Sessions in the Community College Strand

Search the Convention app and see the Convention program for sessions in the new Community College Strand. These sessions (marked “Community College” above the title), connect community college instructors to pedagogy-rich content, including sessions on literature, literacy, and student success alongside composition-centered proposals. Sessions embrace college faculty who work at open-admission type institutions, with first- and second-year or non-traditional students, and in student support roles. Sessions may also support conversations between secondary teachers and community college faculty, noting the crossover in roles and student populations.

What Kinds of Sessions Can I Attend?

Throughout the Convention there are more than 200 sessions designated of interest to college-level educators. Here are a few of the topics:

• Not Just For Kids: Picturebook Read-Alouds in the College Classroom
• Start before the Semester Begins: Cultivating Belonging in the Community College Classroom
• Beyond Curriculum: How the Writing Center Allows Both Students and Faculty to Imagine, Innovate, and Inspire
• Should You “Cite” AI? New Guidance from the MLA
• The Missing Middle: Stories and Strategies for Navigating the Pipeline from High School to College Writing Success
• It’s a Win-Win Situation: Cultivating University & School Partnerships
• Beyond the Workshop: Inspiring Career Readiness through Creative Writing Education in Community Colleges
• Engaging Writers Where They Live: Community Centered Composition
• A More Just Future in College English Teaching: Counterstory as a Tool for Teaching Writers
• Writing Feedback That Inspires Risk-Taking and Revision
• Eight Great Living Writers Who Illuminate the Darkness
• Third Space Writing Instruction: What Does It Take to Support Dual Credit Composition Instruction?
• Continuing Conversations on Dual-Enrolled Student Learners in FYC

I’m a Teacher Educator—Are There Sessions for Me?

Of course! The English Language Arts Teacher Educators (ELATE) group puts together a special program with hundreds of sessions for those who are engaged in the preparation, support, and continuing education of teachers of English language arts/literacy. Sample session topics include:

• Inspiring Preservice English Teachers to Thrive in an AI-Mediated Writing World
• Teaching as Human Work: Inspiring a Mentorship Network through Relationships, Not Evaluation
• Dynamic Author/Illustrator Duos: Imagination, Inspiration, Intentions & Interplay
• This Is What Effective AI Integration Looks Like!
• Inspiring Possibilities for Change: Supports and Obstacles to Justice-Centered Teaching across the United States
• Beyond Bans and Bots: Literacy-Centered Approaches to AI in English Classrooms
• From Banned Books to Brave Teaching: Preservice Teachers Imagine Literary Futures
• Socially Engaged Art as Innovative and Critical Literacy Practice
• Inspiring Joy: Activities for Implementing Joyful Literacies Pedagogy in Secondary English Language Arts
• Recurring Conversations: Innovative Practices from across the History of English Education
• Where Writers Grow: Transformative Composition Pedagogies That Foster Community and Connection
• Insourcing over Outsourcing: What Dual Enrollment Teaches Us about Writing Now
• Reimagining ELA Teaching with Critical Literacy, Anti-Racist Pedagogy, and Decolonizing Curriculum

See Also: Sessions in the New & Early Career Teacher Strand

Search the Convention app and see the Convention program for sessions in the New & Early Career Teacher Strand. These sessions focus on highlighting issues for new teachers and celebrating those in the early years of their profession. Recognizing that teachers today take various paths to the classroom, these sessions will answer questions and offer strategies specifically curated for new and early career teachers and those who support them.

College Level Favorites

College Section Get-Together

Thursday, Nov. 19, 5:45–7:00 p.m.

Meet members of the College Section Steering Committee, hear Section updates and award announcements, gather with friends and colleagues over appetizers, and hear from keynote speaker Dr. Jill Biden.

College Section Luncheon

Friday, Nov. 20, 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Join your community college and university faculty colleagues for this luncheon that will include a keynote address by Natasha Singer.

ELATE Luncheon

Friday, Nov. 20, 11:30 a.m.–1:30 p.m.

Celebrate the accomplishments of ELATE (English Language Arts Teacher Educators) members and enjoy a keynote address by author Raina J. León.

College Section Workshop

Friday, Nov. 20, 3:30–4:45 p.m.

Join us for an immersive learning experience for college teachers: “College Teachers Teaching Reading: Practical Strategies for Postsecondary Readers.”

What about Research?

Each year the Annual Convention features a carefully selected set of sessions devoted entirely to current research in the field, bringing together different perspectives on critical issues. You will be able to search the Research Strand on our online list of sessions to explore more than 200 sessions.

• Black Boys’ Joy in the Living Room: Limitless Possibilities for Humanizing Research
• From Research to Practice: Using AI to Support Writing Instruction
• Critical Witnessing in Literacy: Story, Representation, and Power
• Imagining Aesthetic Reflection to Promote Grade 7 Reading Engagement: An Action Research Study
• Challenging Classroom and Community Censorship through Research, Practice, and Action
• From Hype to Practice: Research Findings on AI-Supported ELA Instruction
• Hacking the Teaching-Research Relationship
• Equity in Learning through AI Literacy
• Fifty Years of Becoming Teachers of Writing: What Qualitative Research Reveals about the NWP Invitational Institute
• Teacher-Researchers Come Together for Social Action: Illuminating Pathways for Championing Change in Challenging Times
• Our Group, a Research Collaborative: Explorations into Alternative Schools, Literacy, and Multilingualism