Every year, the CSU English Education community presents research, facilitates discussions, and shares professional experiences at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) Convention. Held in Denver from November 20–23, this year’s event featured an exciting lineup of keynote speakers, including Pulitzer Prize winner Percival Everett, Absolute Batman author Scott Snyder, TIME 100 honoree Mychal Threets, and Braiding Sweetgrass author Robin Wall Kimmerer.

Recognized as the premier gathering for English language arts and literacy educators, the annual convention brings together thousands of teachers, leaders, students, researchers, authors, and illustrators to engage with and learn from experts, navigate timely topics within the profession, and gain fresh inspiration for classroom practice.

Large group photo of NCTE convention attendees in casual attire, standing and kneeling together.
Group photo! CSU English Education faculty, students, and alumni at NCTE 2025 in Denver, Colorado.

Learn more about how our community showed up at NCTE 2025, below.

 

  • Professor Ricki Ginsberg presented multiple sessions during the convention, including:
    • Two research sessions to share data from her censorship study which focuses on school censorship maneuvers and teachers’ worries.
    • Additionally, Ginsberg co-presented, “Using YA Texts, Hyperlocal Histories, and Place-Based Approaches to Create a Shared Future” with colleague Alexander Pittman in the CSU Department of History and YA authors Angeline Boulley, Mahogany L. Browne, Tamika Burgess, Carole Lindstrom, and Kyle Lukoff.
    • Lastly, Ginsberg shared a content analysis of all empirical research studies in secondary English contexts using diverse YA literature in the past two decades during a session titled, “Uplifting Stories: Literacy Practice and the Power of Representation.”

 

  • Professor Cindy O’Donnell-Allen and CSU alumni Maggie O’Riley (B.A., ’25) and Molly Robbins (B.A., ’93) co-presented “Wobbling with Hope: Using the Pose Wobble Flow Model to Claim and Sustain Your Commitment to Antibias Antiracist Teaching,” which focused on how language arts educators can stay dedicated to anti-bias, anti-racist teaching in today’s fraught political climate. O’Donnell-Allen also co-hosted a roundtable with English instructor Ted Fabiano on sustainable teaching programming for early-career teachers in the CSU Writing Project.

 

  • Visiting Assistant Professor Sandra Saco presented her research on how Latinx youth book clubs experience reading diverse young adult literature in the ELA classroom in a session titled, “Dreaming of a Better World: Teaching and Research Insights from Two ELA Classrooms Focused on African American and Latinx and Chicanx Perspectives.”Saco also participated in the ALAN roundtable about her current research on Latinx Young Adult Literature and co-presented, “Dreaming Together of a Just Future: Shaping Our Futures upon Solid Foundations of Our Cultural Knowledge” which focused on critical autoethnographic research developed alongside Assistant Professor Naitnaphit Limlamai. This research explores the experiences of three scholars of color in the academy through storytelling. Additionally, Limlamai helped plan NCTE sessions for English Language Arts Teacher Educator community building and roundtable presentations and ALAN roundtables.

 

  • Our students also represented at the conference! Recent alum Joya Haskin (B.A., ’24) presented a “Build Your Stack” session, while current undergraduate and graduate students Isabel Blosser, Lilah Claycomb, Trey DuFauchard, Dylan Lorash-Neuenschwander, Alyssa Love, and Marquita Woods presented about mental health literacy and led roundtable discussions with young adult authors who write books about mental health.

 

Check out more fun photos from NCTE 2025 on the CSU English Instagram page.

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