The 29th Annual Conference on Literacy, “Celebrating Our Many Languages,” brought together dozens of educators to explore how the complexities of language can be harnessed to improve the learning experience.
The event was presented by the college’s Collaborative for Equity in Literacy Learning (CELL), in collaboration with the Center for Adolescent Research and Development (CARD).
The conference featured two keynote speakers. The first was Thanhhà Lại, a New York Times bestselling author who presented “Building a Hybrid Voice.” Lại’s debut novel, Inside Out & Back Again, was recognized with a National Book Award and a Newbery Honor. She also wrote the acclaimed Listen, Slowly, her young adult (YA) debut Butterfly Yellow, and the picture book Hundred Years of Happiness. Lại was born in Vietnam and now lives in New York with her family.
The second speaker was Sunil Singh, an author, storyteller, and math educator, who presented “Mathematics is Filled with Romance and Wonder: So Why Don’t We Teach It That Way?” Singh has recently started a new journey sharing his passion for math history/narrative, leading workshops across North America at institutions like The Museum of Mathematics in New York, The Fields Institute, the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. Singh currently works at Amplify to help develop storytelling into their K-12 math program, and at Mathigon as a content writer.
In between the keynote talks, attendees enjoyed a variety of workshops, including “Zooming In: Using Digital Technology to Expand Vocabulary,” “To Be A Writer: Identity and Identification,” and “The Art of Writing."