My Experience at the Kansas Association of Teachers of English (KATE) Conference and Why YOU Should Go!
Welcome all,
This past weekend, November 1 and 2, I had the amazing opportunity to attend this year's KATE Conference. This year's theme, "Voices From Our Backyard," featured two keynote speakers: the Poet Laureate of Kansas, Traci Brimhall; along with author and educator, Jason D. DeHart. This was my first year attending a conference like this and I did not know what to expect, but it was something I probably won't forget anytime soon. I was fortunate enough to attend both days of this conference, I'm glad the rain didn't prevent my travels or lower anyone's spirit. The first ever breakout room I went to was regarding engagement strategies for middle and high school educators. This breakout room provided many strategies, from engaging students with reading or with different ways to start discussions. The title of the breakout room was creative enough to make me want to go, "Dismantling the Tortured Teachers Department: Secondary English Engagement Strategies We Love," a change of words to Taylor Swift's newest album Tortured Poets Department. A couple strategies that I loved while participating was "Choice Boards," providing students with choices for a "main dish," "side dish," and, "dessert," essentially allowing for more choice in the classroom so that students can choose what is more interesting to them. They still get the some information but in a different format that they may find more engaging. The other strategy I loved which would be good for descriptive texts or when studying ekphrasis (something that I am currently doing in my internship at East) is to "Say What You See," making it a competition to see who can include the most accurate information and the most information about a certain medium. This breakout room ended with everyone competing in a quick, "Escape Room," which is something that I enjoy doing in my free-time that I think would work SO good in an ELA classroom when considering multimodal ways to teach and get students engaged with looking closely at "clues" or print and non-print texts.
While I just discussed this one breakout room, all that I attended and heard about were amazing chances to learn and meet new people. This opportunity gave me a chance to meet with other ELA instructors but also local authors. I met Nathan Whitman at an AI Panel Discussion a few weeks before this, but this weekend I got to see him on stage as acting president of KATE. This was Nathan's last KATE Conference as president and on the last day of the conference he got a standing ovation for his accomplishments for the time that he held the position. Another portion that isn't discussed a lot is the after-party dinner for Drury guests and the Open-Mic held on one of the rooms of the conference. I had a huge opportunity to have a chance to attend both and it was possibly the best dinner and discussions I had. Getting to sit, be around, and talk to such amazing people was the best feeling in the world. Not only did I get to talk to a lot of these amazing educators, I also got to try something new, fish tacos. I was sitting across from Amanda and she offered her last taco to me. Before taking it, I asked what kind of tacos and she said they were something with fish. I'm always skeptical about any fish from a landlocked state (like Kansas) so I almost didn't take it. However, the lady sitting next to me, made a great point that if we are expecting our students to try something new, we should be willing to do the same. At that point, I decided to try it, and it was so good. I then thought about how we as educators have to be just as willing and open to new experiences as we expect our students to be. This small moment for me gave me a lot of insight for this career that I am chasing.
Finally, the second day of the conference. This was a nervous day for me, my team and I had practiced together once for our breakout session, I even practiced a little at home to my dogs (who I'm sure are tired of hearing about The Collectors by A.S. King). We were the second breakout room of the day, right before lunch, Jason DeHart's speech, and the closing address. Before our breakout, a couple of my friends/classmates attended a breakout room discussing the connections of place, which talked about the challenges and opportunities that educators can have when traveling abroad. Throughout my college experience, I had a chance to travel to Seattle (not as abroad as London, like the presenters). This trip was fully paid and I was ecstatic to get to go on my first ever plane ride. I didn't, however, have a chance to reflect on my reading or writing processes on this trip. After going to this breakout, I want to try this out when I travel abroad. It was then our turn to have our breakout session, my heart was beating rapidly and my legs were shaking. I can hardly remember most of what happened. We got many compliments and I was so proud of my classmates. They were all amazing, I think Courtney had the most humorous title (Huda F Cares? by Huda Fahmy) and had some of our audience members cracking up. Overall, our presentation went great.
The last part of the conference was the transfer of presidency to Caleb Thornton. I also had a chance to meet and talk with him for a small bit and I can positively say that he will be such a great president over this association. Having a chance to watch the induction process and seeing how devoted he and all these educators were made me feel proud to be going into this career. If you ever want to be around like-minded people and have conversations about books, authors, and the like, I highly recommend the KATE Conference. This is something that I want to attend every year and continue talking about it with more people in my life.
My experience was made so great by a couple people that I didn't talk about above. First is my amazing professor, Dr. Katie Cramer. As long as I have been in her classes, Dr. Cramer has been a positive person through and through and always pushes me (and my classmates) to be the best teacher we can be. Without her guidance, this would've been a hectic weekend with finding where to go and park. The second person was by mentor teacher, Stacy Chestnut. Stacy is the only reason that I was able to attend the dinner and the open-mic. I'm sure that if she didn't invite me to dinner with the KATE board, I probably would've gone home and not had such a great evening. Stacy comes from a small town like I did and I think that is one of the aspects to our friendship that connects us so strongly, she understands what it's like from a small town where everyone knows everyone. Stacy also has an abundance of knowledge that even though this semester is already almost over, I still have so much to learn from her. Her unique background and experiences make her an amazing mentor and an even better teacher.
Have a great week and I can't wait to see you at next year's KATE Conference!
This is a poem I made during one of the activities in the grand hall:
What an informative post, Dylan! You did a great job sharing about your experiences in several sessions—including presenting—and you also shared powerful insights about your networking opportunities at the social and open mic (yay!), as well as your thoughtful observations about the dedication of KATE leadership (e.g., Nathan, Caleb, and Stacy). I also love the photo of your writing from the general session. How fun! With some light editing, I think most of this content could be great for the KATE PAGES Blog!!
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