Thursday General Session—
Otto Santa Ana
As a sociolinguist, Otto Santa Ana has focused on the academic needs of Latino and other language minority public school students. His acclaimed book, Tongue-Tied: the Lives of Multilingual Children in Public Schools, has been described as both "a testament to the pain that children suffer in schools, as well as to the resiliency of their human spirit in the face of institutional racism." Santa Ana also studies mass media with the tools of cognitive science.
His first award-winning book, Brown Tide Rising: Metaphors of Latinos in Contemporary American Public Discourse, is an empirically based critique of mass media's false representations of key aspects of U.S. society.
In this NCTE talk, he will discuss contemporary political attacks on schools, teachers, and schoolchildren. By focusing on educational metaphors expressed in the public sphere, he will demonstrate how Americans conceptualize public education today, and what the NCTE and other educationalists can do about it.
Santa Ana will be speaking at the Thursday General Session at 6:30 p.m.
Friday General Session—
Erin Gruwell
Nothing could have prepared Erin Gruwell for her first day of teaching at Wilson High School in Long Beach, Calif. A recent college graduate, Erin landed her first job in Room 203, only to discover many of her students had been written off by the education system and deemed “unteachable.” As teenagers living in a racially divided urban community, they were already hardened by first-hand exposure to gang violence, juvenile detention, and drugs.
Enter Erin Gruwell. By fostering an educational philosophy that valued and promoted diversity, she transformed her students’ lives. She encouraged them to rethink rigid beliefs about themselves and others, to reconsider daily decisions, and to rechart their futures. With Erin’s steadfast support, her students shattered stereotypes to become critical thinkers, aspiring college students, and citizens for change. They even dubbed themselves the “Freedom Writers” — in homage to civil rights activists “The Freedom Riders” — and published a book.
Gruwell will speak at the Friday General Session at 8:00 a.m.
Saturday General Session—
T.A. Barron
T.A. Barron has written over twenty highly acclaimed novels, children’s books, and nature books. He has won the Nautilus Award, along with many honors from the American Library Association and the International Reading Association. His books, now in twelve languages, include The Lost Years of Merlin, The Great Tree of Avalon, The Ancient One , and The Hero’s Trail. In 2000, he founded a national award to honor outstanding young people who help their communities or the environment: the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes.
Barron will speak at the Saturday General Session at 8:00 p.m.
Sunday General Session—
Carol Jago
Carol Jago has taught English in middle and high school for 32 years and directs the California Reading and Literature Project at UCLA. She is currently president of the National Council of Teachers of English. Carol served as AP Literature content advisor for the College Board and has published six books for teachers. She has also published four books on contemporary multicultural authors for NCTE's High School Literature series. Carol has written a weekly education column for the Los Angeles Times, and her essays have appeared in English Journal, Language Arts, NEA Today, as well as in other newspapers across the nation. She edits the journal of the California Association of Teachers of English, California English, and served on the planning committee for the 2009 NAEP Reading Framework and the 2011 NAEP Writing Framework.
Jago will deliver her Presidential Address during the Sunday General Session at 10:00 a.m.
Affiliate Roundtable Breakfast—
Keith Gilyard
Keith Gilyard is Distinguished Professor of English at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park. He has served on the executive committees of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the Conference on English Education (CEE), and the Conference on College Composition and Communication (CCCC). In 2000, he served as chair of CCCC. Gilyard has lectured widely on language, literature, and education. He also has read his poetry at numerous venues and was a featured writer on the award-winning Annenberg/CPB television series The Expanding Canon. Author of numerous publications, Gilyard’s books include Voices of the Self: A Study of Language Competence, for which he received an American Book Award.
Gillyard will speak at the Affiliate Breakfast on Sunday, November 21, at 7:15 a.m.
Books for Children Luncheon—
Carole Boston Weatherford
Award-winning poet Carole Boston Weatherford is the author of numerous books, including the Carter G. Woodson award winning title, The Sound That Jazz Makes and most recently, Dear Mr. Rosenwald. Her writing covers such topics as jazz and photography, as well as the slavery, reconstruction and Jim Crow eras. When she's not traveling or visiting museums, Carole is mining the past for family stories, fading traditions, and forgotten struggles. She has a passion for rescuing events and figures from obscurity by documenting American history.
Weatherford will be speaking at the Books for Children Luncheon on Saturday, November 20, at 12:30 p.m.
Stenhouse editorial director Philippa Stratton has been named Outstanding Educator in the English Language Arts for 2010 by the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE). The award, recognizes a distinguished national or international educator who has made major contributions to the field of language arts in elementary education.
Stratton, who co-founded Stenhouse in 1993 with her husband Tom Seavey, was honored for her decades of work "shaping some of the most important innovations in literacy education, including whole language, readers' and writers' workshop, reading comprehension strategies, literature circles, and literacy centers." Prior to starting Stenhouse, Stratton worked in the London offices of Heinemann and moved to the U.S. where she and Seavey began to develop Heinemann's publishing in the field of literacy education.
Stratton will speak at the Elementary Section Get-Together on Thursday, November 18, at 4:30 p.m.
Children’s Literature Assembly Breakfast—
David Wiesner
David Wiesner is one of the best-loved picture book creators in the world. His books have been translated into over a dozen languages worldwide, including Greek, Italian, Danish and Chinese, and they have won numerous awards. Including most notably, three Caldecott Medals, and two Caldecott Honors.
Wiesner graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and it was during his studies at RISD that he first encountered the creative possibilities of visual storytelling; he soon discovered that picture books were the perfect medium for his art.
Wiesner will be speaking at the Children’s Literature Assembly Breakfast on Sunday, November 21, at 7:30 a.m.
Middle Section Luncheon—
Sharon Draper
Sharon Draper is a two-time Coretta Scott King Award-winning author, most recently for Copper Sun, and previously for Forged by Fire. She's also the recipient of the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Author Award for New Talent for Tears of a Tiger and the Coretta Scott King Author Honor for The Battle of Jericho and November Blues. She is actively involved in encouraging and motivating all teachers and their students as well, spreading the word about the power of accomplished teaching and excellence in education.
Draper will be speaking at Middle Section Luncheon on Friday, November 19, at 12:30 p.m.
Middle Section Get-Together—
Troy Hicks, Bud Hunt, and Sara Kajder
Troy Hicks is an assistant professor of English at Central Michigan University and focuses on the teaching of writing; writing across the curriculum; literacy and technology; and teacher education and professional development. In his research, he collaborates with K – 12 teachers and explores how they implement newer literacies in their classrooms. Hicks writes the blog Digital Writing, Digital Teaching, which explores issues related to teaching writing with new media for K – 12 teachers and teacher educators.
Bud Hunt is an instructional technologist for the St. Vrain Valley School District in northern Colorado. Bud is a former co-editor of the New Voices column of English Journal, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English. Bud is a co-founder of Learning 2.0: A Colorado Conversation and has served as an Online Community Leader for the New Jersey Cohort of Powerful Learning Practice, a long-term, job-embedded professional development program that immerses participants in 21st Century learning environments.
Sara Kajder is an assistant professor of English Education at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech). A former middle and high school English teacher, she received the first National Technology Fellowship in English/Language Arts. A nationally-known consultant and speaker, she is the author of
Bringing the Outside In and
The Tech Savvy English Classroom.
Hicks, Hunt, and Kajder will speak at the Middle Section Get-Together on Thursday, November 18, at 4:30 p.m.
Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of NCTE (ALAN) Breakfast—
Gary Paulsen
It is Gary Paulsen’s overwhelming belief in young people that drives him to write and has brought him both enormous popularity with young people and critical acclaim from the children’s book community. Paulsen is a master storyteller who has written more than 200 books and some 200 articles and short stories for children and adults. He is one of the most important writers of young adult literature today and three of his novels—Hatchet, Dogsong, and The Winter Room—were Newbery Honor Books.
Paulsen will speak at the ALAN Breakfast on Saturday, November 20, at 7:00 a.m.
Secondary Luncheon—
Firoozeh Dumas
Firoozeh Dumas grew up listening to her father recount the many colorful stories of his life in both Iran and America. With no prior writing experience, Firoozeh decided to write her stories as a gift for her two children. Funny in Farsi was on the San Francisco Chronicle and Los Angeles Times bestseller lists. She was also a finalist for the prestigious Thurber Prize for American Humor. For the past five years, Firoozeh has traveled the country reminding us that our commonalities far outweigh our differences…and doing so with humor.
Dumas will speak at the Secondary Section Luncheon on Saturday, November 20, at 12:30 p.m.
Lois Duncan is the author of over 50 books, ranging from children's picture books to poetry to adult non-fiction, but is best known for her young adult suspense novels, which have received Young Readers Awards in 16 states and three foreign countries. Lois has been awarded the Margaret A. Edwards Award, presented by the School Library Journal and the ALA Young Adult Library Services Association for "a distinguished body of adolescent literature." She also received the Katharine Drexel Award, awarded by the Catholic Library Association. Six of her novels—Summer of Fear, Killing Mr. Griffin, Gallows Hill, Ransom, Don’t Look behind You, and Stranger with My Face — became made-for-TV movies. I Know What You Did Last Summer and Hotel for Dogs became major box office hits.
Duncan will speak at the Secondary Section Section Get-Together on Thursday, November 18, at 4:30 p.m.
Conference on English Leadership Luncheon—Ernest Morrell
Dr. Ernest Morrell is an associate professor in the Urban Schooling division of the Graduate School of Education and Information Studies and Associate Director at the Institute for Democracy, Education, and Access at UCLA. For more than fifteen years he has worked with inner city youth, drawing on their everyday experiences and their involvement with popular culture to promote academic literacy development and social responsibility. Morrell is the author of four books and numerous peer-reviewed journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia entries. His research explores how educators can draw upon youth voice to increase academic achievement and positive social development.
Morrell will be speaking at the Conference on English Leadership Luncheon on Sunday, November 21, at 11:30 a.m.
College Section/CCCC Luncheon—
Shirley Geok-Lin Lim 
Shirley Geok-Lin Lim is a Professor in the English Department at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She received her Ph.D. from Brandeis University in 1973, and has also taught at internationally, at the National University of Singapore, NIE of Nanyang Technological University, and most recently as Chair Professor at the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests include Asian-American and post-colonial cultural productions and ethnic and feminist writing. She is the author of five books of poems; three books of short stories; two books of criticism: Nationalism and Literature and Writing South/East Asia in English: Against the Grain; a book of memoirs, Among the White Moon Faces: An Asian-American Memoir of Homelands, and a novel, Joss and Gold. She has served as editor/co-editor of numerous scholarly works, including The Forbidden Stich, Approaches to Teaching Kingston’s The Woman Warror, and Transnational Asia Pacific.
Lim will speak at the College Section/CCCC Luncheon on Saturday, November 20, at 12:30 p.m.
College Celebration—
Howard Tinberg 
Howard Tinberg, Professor of English at Bristol Community College (Fall River, MA), is the author of Border Talk: Writing and Knowing at the Two-Year College (NCTE, 1997), Writing with Consequence: What Writing Does in the Disciplines (Longman, 2003), and (with JP Nadeau) Community College Writers: Exceeding Expectations (SIU Press, 2010). He is co-editor, with Patrick Sullivan,of What is College-Level Writing? (NCTE 2006) and with Patrick Sullivan and Sheridan Blau, of What is College-Level Writing? II (NCTE, forthcoming). He is past editor of the journal Teaching English in the Two-Year College (published by NCTE). Dr. Tinberg is the 2004 recipient of the Carnegie/CASE Community College Professor of the Year and served as a Carnegie Scholar in 2005-2006.
Tinberg will speak at the College Celebration on Friday, November 19, at 7:30 p.m.
Conference on English Education Luncheon—
Leonard Pitts, Jr. 
Leonard Pitts, Jr. is already a major voice in contemporary journalism, as his column (which won the 2004 Pulitzer for commentary) is syndicated to more than 200 papers. His writing is clear, simple, and direct, accessible but also engaged with truly urgent and substantive concerns. His writing reveals a profound understanding of the difficulties facing black men as they grapple with their role as fathers—as well as the crucial importance of fulfilling that role. Both Jamie Foxx and Don Cheadle have expressed interest in bringing this work to the screen.
Pitts will speak at the Conference on English Education (CEE) Luncheon on Friday, November 19, at 12:30 p.m.