Bat Country

Conferences are interesting things, filled with the excitement of new ideas and the slow movements of a wandering mind. A child of a generation raised on a steady dose of television and cinema, I pulled into the parking lot of the Marriott with scenes and dramatizations rolling through my mind. 

The event turned out to be much like what I anticipated. It wasn't Dr. Gonzo sitting in a room full of cops or a group tired stiffs presenting awards and counting down the minutes until they were free to mingle at the bar, nor was it a room filled with fanatic nerd dressed in homemade costumes. Ok, it might be a little like the last one. As a nerd and a future teacher, I feel safe saying that in a group of 100 teachers there are 95 nerds and five people that are lying to themselves. Nerds have made a lot of progress since the Tri-Lambs and they are perfectly suited for teaching.

But, I digress. The conference gave me a chance to learn a few things and share my ideas with people that have the same passion for English and education that I do. The number one topic was Common Core. In fact, there was a session that seemed to focus on it too much. I realize that the presenter was trying to show how her lesson ideas would work great with the Common Core, but it seemed she spoke more about her concerns with Common Core than on art related assignments. She was entertaining, introduced some new literature, and showed a few new assignment ideas, but not to the extent I expected. The key note speaker was also disappointing. I liked his views about Common Core, although I feel he may have simplified the idea of developing lesson plans. It also seemed more of a push to buy his books than anything. I realize that a large portion of his sales probably come from schools and teachers, but it still felt like I was on set with Ron Popeil.

The rest of the sessions were interesting. I enjoyed seeing a speaker from my hometown speaking about LGBT issues. My hometown isn’t exactly opened minded and it is nice to see people break the stereotype of the rural Kansan.  I had fun in the session that connected The Great Gatsby to games. I knew it was going to be good when the presenter began playing a Great Gatsby game that was based on Castlevania on the NES. She also had a great idea for a paper that showed how the literature has affected popular culture.

My final session dealt with the grading of AP papers. It was an eye opening experience that threw my idea about the importance the five paragraph paper out the window. It turns out that little attention is paid to that aspect. The ideas expressed and the understanding shown by the writer are more important than the order it is delivered, and the amount of time that a grade spends looking over a AP placement paper is much shorter than most of us would imagine. I was also introduced to the idea of having the students rate sample AP papers in order to give them an understanding of what the different levels of papers look like.

I wasn’t able to attend both days, but really do think that the conference was useful and I will attend it every year if possible.