Noah Asher Golden, Ph.D., Assistant Professor in the Attallah College of Educational Studies, and three students in Attallah College’s undergraduate IES (Integrated Educational Studies) program, Kaitlyn Zeigler, Talia Cain, and Emmery Llewellyn, recently presented at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) 2018 Annual Convention in Houston, Texas. 

Each year thousands of literacy educators attend the NCTE convention to hear about new strategies and best practices for teaching literacy, language, and composition. The theme of this year’s NCTE convention was “Raising Student Voice: Speaking Out for Equity and Justice”

IES students at the 2018 NCTE Convention

Kait Zeigler, Talia Cain, and Emmery Llewellyn at the 2018 NCTE Convention

The Attallah team’s presentation, which was titled “Building Critical Media Literacy Through Journalistic Writing and Multimedia Production,” was part of the “SLAM (Studies in Literacies and Multimedia) 2018: Creating Critical Spaces for Critical Times” session. In that session, participants explored the use of media and technology to create critical spaces for dialogue and inquiry. They talked about the 21st century literacy skills and tools needed in and out of the classroom to facilitate these important conversations.

Under the umbrella of this larger conversation, Dr. Golden and the Attallah students presented on the challenges and strengths they faced implementing a critical media program at Yorba Academy of the Arts Middle School last spring. 

As part of a Yorba-Chapman Writing Partnership program, Dr. Noah Golden’s IES 412 course “Teaching Writing K-12” has partnered with Yorba Middle School for the past three years. The course includes an on-site literacy component at Yorba, where Yorba students receive individualized support from Chapman mentors. This gives IES students hands-on experience practicing different teaching methodologies. The semester then culminates in a Publishing Party, where the middle school students have the chance to read out loud articles they have researched and written and to present their critical media projects to family and friends.

In their NCTE presentation, the Chapman team discussed their experiences in the Yorba-Chapman Writing Partnership program. Specifically, they talked about some of the challenges in building authentic relationships and in implementing critical media technologies.

“I am very grateful for the opportunity to attend and participate in this conference. I aspire to become a high school English teacher, and learning firsthand from current educators was tremendously valuable,” said  IES senior Talia Cain ’19. “Their stories reaffirmed my belief in the power of education to bring about social change. I also really enjoyed sharing my experiences from working on the Yorba-Chapman Writing Partnership in the roundtable. It was a great way to practice presenting in a collaborative conference setting.”

The Yorba-Chapman Writing Partnership program is made possible by the generous support of the Lloyd E. and Elisabeth H. Klein Family Foundation and Christine and Lon Cross.