BCTELA

Engaging with Diverse Texts

Beverley Ann Chin
John Golden
Sylvia Pantaleo
David Booth

These four outstanding speakers will come together and present on current topics and issues in today's diverse texts.  Below is a taste of what each speaker will present.

Beverley Ann Chin
What pre-reading strategies invite inquiry and nurture empathy in our teaching of multicultural literature?
In this lively workshop, we will explore strategies that help students become critical, creative readers of multicultural literature. Pre-reading strategies, such as gallery walk, mystery text, and role playing, are powerful ways to engage students and help them make text-to-self and text-to-world connections.

We would like to thank Glencoe/ McGraw-Hill for sponsoring Beverley's visit to our conference this year.

John Golden
Engaging Student Readers through Film and Media.
In a culture overwhelmed with news, information, and images, students need to be aware of the ways that non-fiction media.  Newspapers, documentaries, research studies, opinion pieces seek to influence their personal, social, and political decisions. This session will focus on what students need to be able to read in the classroom as well as out in the real world.

Sylvia Pantaleo
Exploring Narrative Heterogeneity in Contemporary Picture Books.
A growing number of picture books, as well as other forms of print and digital texts, are offering readers and viewers an ever-increasing range of narrative forms. We will discuss how contemporary picture books with diverse narrative structures can motivate, inspire and engage learners.

David Booth
Creative Activities to Support Critical Literacy.
Participants will explore a variety of experiential creative strategies designed to enhance and extend critical understanding of a variety of text forms.  We will examine the role of creative and imaginative responses to text as a means of deepening critical understanding.

Biographical Information

Beverly Ann Chin is Professor of English, Director of English Teaching Program, and former Director of Montana Writing Project at University of Montana. She is a Past President of NCTE. She served as Lead Editorial Consultant for "Teaching Multicultural Literature: A Workshop for the Middle Grades" and Teacher Educator Consultant for "The Expanding Canon: Teaching Multicultural Literature in High School" (Annenberg/CPB).

John Golden is currently a curriculum specialist for high school Language Arts in Portland, Oregon. He is the author of Reading in the Dark: Using Film as a Tool in the English Classroom (NCTE, 2001) and Reading in the Reel World: Teaching Documentaries and Other Nonfiction Texts (NCTE, 2006). John has delivered presentations and led workshops around the country in order to help teachers use film actively in the classroom as a way for students to improve their reading, analytical and critical thinking skills.

Sylvia Pantaleo is an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Victoria. She teaches courses in language and literacy and children's literature at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

David Booth is Chair of Literacy at Nipissing University and Professor Emeritus at OISE/UT. As a writer and International speaker, he has worked with educators throughout Canada, the United States, Great Britain, Australia and Asia.