A quarter-millennium into the American experiment, English teachers find themselves at the center of the country’s most urgent questions. How do we know what is true? Whose stories belong in our classrooms? What does it mean to compose, to read, and to think when the tools of attention are designed to capture us, and the tools of authorship now write back? ELA’s enduring focus on interpreting and composing texts, inspiring compassion and ethical relationships, and critically evaluating and appreciating language, media, and technology has much to offer people of all ages. In a climate of polarization, contested curricula, generative AI, and rapid demographic and technological change, the work of the ELA classroom has never mattered more.

About the Presenter

Renee Hobbs is one of the nation’s leading scholars of media literacy education. She is the founder of the Media Education Lab and a Professor of Communication Studies at the Harrington School of Communication and Media at the University of Rhode Island. Her book Mind Over Media: Propaganda Education for a Digital Age (W. W. Norton, 2020) gives teachers and students practical tools to recognize, analyze, critique and create media in a moment when the line between information, entertainment, and persuasion is increasingly hard to draw. Across more than a dozen books and decades of work with K–12 teachers, teacher educators, and policymakers on four continents, she has championed media literacy as an essential practice of literacy that builds the infrastructure needed for a healthy democracy. Learn more: www.mediaeducationlab.com

* Registration and breakfast open at 8:30. The workshop includes a one-hour break for lunch. 5 CEUs available to participants.