Standing Committee on Affiliates
Function: To keep informed of the needs and interests of affiliates; to maintain a general overview of inter and intra affiliate events, policies, and procedures; to encourage communication among affiliates, and between affiliates and the Council; to organize affiliate related events at NCTE conventions; to serve as an advisory body for affiliate related NCTE committees, for the Director of Communications and Affiliate Services, and, upon request, for individual affiliates; to make recommendations to the Executive Committee regarding the ways in which affiliates and the Council can assist each other in strengthening programs and services for members of the profession; and to serve as a representative of NCTE in the field.
What major actions or projects have been completed by your group since July 1 2006?
At the June 2006 Affiliate Leadership Conference we focused on literacy for the 21st century and the role of affiliates in promoting literacy, its expanded definition for the electronic age and ways that affiliates and SCOA Regional Representative can take an active role in helping to promote literacy education in schools and in the community. We also revised the questions we were asking our affiliate leaders so that we could get more substantive information about our affiliates.
At the NCTE Convention in Nashville our meetings and SCOA sponsored program focused on NCTE’s focus issue for 2006: Ongoing Professional Development.
What projects, initiatives, or studies are “in progress” at this time?
- The revised criteria for evaluating submissions for the Affiliate Excellence award were in place for 2007 applications.
The revised SCOA Regional Representative job description was put in place for 2007.
As a result of our more in-depth and relevant questions we learned much more about the affiliates; they information was sorted, categorized, and forwarded to the NCTE Executive Council for consideration.
Based on the responses from affiliates in 2006, we will continue to ask similar question but as a zoomerang survey.
And as Committee of NCTE we will continue to challenge ourselves as to ways we can best serve our affiliates and represent NCTE.
Strategic Governance: Over the past three years, the NCTE Executive Committee has established outcomes and priorities relating to these key topics in our field: Teacher Quality, Adolescent Literacy, Assessment, Writing, Multimodal Literacy and Technology, Research and Teaching , English Language Learners, and Professional Development . Currently, they are investigating how to expand access to reading research, how NCTE can help close the “achievement gap” in English language arts, and other audiences that NCTE could be serving. Does your group have research findings or suggestions to contribute that are relevant to on-going work on these strategic governance topics?
- The SCOA regional representative keeps the affiliate leaders in their regions apprised of key topics and request affiliates to inform NCTE’s Executive Committee of research findings and/or suggestions relevant to these key topics.
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iteracy and professional development continue to be focus issues for SCOA because these two issues reflect the dominant concerns of our affiliates (along with NCLB—which is, of course, integral to literacy and very much related to professional development). For our daylong workshop in 2006 we invited literacy-learning specialists Linda Christenson, Sandra Childs, Pam Hooten, Carol Campbell, and Alex Gordin to present a program on interdisciplinary literacy learning strategies.
For our 2007 day-long workshop we have invited specialist from NYC public schools to share practical ways they have turned classrooms, schools, and districts around in order to close the achievement gap for diverse learners in complicated urban settings (Shelley Harwayne, Daria Rigney, and Sharon Hill).
Ruth Townsend Story, Chair
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